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Handy-Volume Series. 
N°- VIII. 



THE 

Tin Trumpet. 



BY 



HORACE SMITH. 



THE 



Tin Trumpet. 



BY 



HORACE SMITH, 

AUTHOR OF "REJECTED ADDRESSES," "BRAMBLETYE HOUSE," 
ETC., ETC. 



AUTHORISED EDITION. 



LONDON : 

BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., 8, 9 & 10, BOUVERIE ST. 

1875. 



■pi? Sh 



LONDON : 
ERADBUKT, i.ONlSW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITBFJUAttS. 



NOTICE. 



The Tin Trumpet is the whimsical name of a 
work which, when published thirty-three years ago, had 
but a small success, through the vagueness of its title, 
through the concealment of its authorship, and through 
the boldness of some of its opinions. It is, however, 
a very remarkable work, full of wit and wisdom, and is 
greatly prized by collectors, both for its worth and for 
its scarceness. Its authorship has been confidently 
ascribed to various writers, and particularly to Thackeray. 
The real author's name is now for the first time acknow- 
ledged, and that by permission of his family. 



{Original Title.) 

THE TIN TRUMPET 

OR 

HEADS AND TALES 

FOR THE WISE AND WAGGISH. 
EDITED BY 

JEFFERSON SAUNDERS, Esq. 



Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem. "—Horace. 



LONDON : 
PRINTED FOR WHITTAKER & Co. 

AVE MARIA LANE. 
1836. 



INTRODUCTION. 



BY THE EDITOR. 




O say that my deceased friend had always been 
an eccentric creature, a humorist, an oddity, 
will scarcely be received as a sufficient explana- 
tion of the quaint title which he has thought 
proper to affix to his work, and for which, 
therefore, I feel it my first duty as an Editor, to account. 
After the death of his wife, and, subsequently, of his 
only child, to both of whom he had been most tenderly 
attached, Dr. Chatfield sought relief from sorrow by frequent 
changes of scene, and found such alleviation of mind in 
wandering over the wilder and least frequented districts of 
the north of England, as well as such an expanded field 
for the exercise of his philanthropy, the ruling passion of 
his soul, that he formed the Quixotic resolution of abandon- 
ing his regular professional pursuits, then highly profitable, 
and of exercising them gratuitously for the benefit of such 
remote and forlorn objects, as he might encounter in that 
erratic life which he had now determined on adopting. 
Born in Yorkshire, and well acquainted with its loneliest 
recesses, experience had convinced him that there were 
many remote hamlets, as well as solitary hovels of wood 



x INTRODUCTION. 

and turf-cutters, charcoal burners, and other peasants, where 
much sickness and suffering were endured, either from local 
difficulties, or from pecuniary inability to employ even a 
village practitioner. To this class of indigent and obscure 
sufferers, whom he visited in regular periodical excursions, 
he devoted, for several years, his eminent professional skill, 
his time, his cheerful powers of consolation, and no small 
portion of his fortune, (which, since his retirement from 
productive practice, was restricted to rather less than five 
hundred a-year,) with a zeal, perseverance, and success, 
utterly unparalleled, as I verily believe, except in the won- 
ders of charity, accomplished with a similar income, by the 
celebrated Man of Ross. 

For the sake of his own health, which was now occa- 
sionally impaired, as well as for the purpose of meeting 
a circle of cherished friends, who usually betook themselves 
to Harrowgate during the season, the Doctor made that 
place his head-quarters for a portion of every summer. 
Upon one of these visits he established a little society, 
which met weekly at his lodgings, under the name of " The 
Tea Party," to participate in his favourite beverage, and 
to pass a few hours in rational conversation. From every 
thing in the nature of a club, as the reader will perceive, on 
a reference to that word in the present work, my friend 
recoiled with an insurmountable aversion, only consenting 
to be named President of the Tea Party, on condition that 
it should consist of both sexes, and be governed by the 
rules that he had drawn up for its regulation. These 
exhibited, in several instances, their author's characteristic 
whimsicality. To avoid the use of a hammer, which was 
associated, in his mind, with the chairman of a club, it was 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

his good pleasure to suspend from his neck a small Tin 
Trumpet, by sounding an alarum upon which he procured 
order, when there was the smallest irregularity or deviation 
from a punctilious courtesy on the part of any member. 
The same Tin Trumpet, with a transferable steel-pen 
affixed to its narrow end, served to register the proceedings 
of the society in a book kept for that purpose ; as well as to 
write on a slip of paper, for the information of the asso- 
ciates, the subjects upon which they were to converse at 
their next meeting. Not in any degree, however, could this 
friendly party be assimilated to a debating society, though 
its founder was anxious to avoid the common trivialities 
of chit-chat, by devoting an hour and a half of their meeting 
ot the consideration of some specific objects, of which several 
were sometimes proposed for a single night. The remain- 
ing hour and a half, for they met at seven, and parted at 
ten, was given to tea, and such passing topics as might 
be spontaneously suggested, and which generally assumed 
a greater latitude, and more playful character, from the 
previous limitation and partial restraint upon the general 
volubility. In the presence of the Doctor, indeed, it was 
almost impossible not to sympathise with his remarkably 
cheerful temperament. 

It was the founder's custom to note down in a common- 
place book, such brief heads, or extracts, or allusions as 
might bear upon the subject next to be considered; for it 
will readily be conjectured that he himself was the principal 
speaker. Loving truth better even than my late friend, I 
am bound to confess that apophthegms, epigrammatical 
turns, terse sayings, antithetical phrases, and even puerile 
conceits, were his hobby-horse, and one which he occa- 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

sionally rode even to a tiresome excess. Whatever of this 
sort was elicited at the meetings, or subsequently presented 
itself in his superficial reading, for he did not affect pro- 
found literature, was transferred to his common-place book, 
under different alphabetical heads, a process in which he 
invariably employed the writing instrument to which we 
have already alluded. This will explain the title of " The 
Tin Trumpet " — given to his book, as well as the first part of 
its second appellation—" Heads and Tales." 

In elucidation of this latter word we must state that the 
most important personage of the party, after its president, 
was one Timothy Harrison, an independent Yorkshire 
yeoman, and a not less singular character, though in a 
different way, than his bosom friend, and latterly his almost 
inseparable companion — the Doctor. Honest Tim, who was 
the installed punster and wag, or, as the reader may rather 
think, the Merry Andrew of the party, made it his business 
to cap every grave remark or serious discussion with some 
foolery, either in the shape of quibble, joke, anecdote, or 
appropriate tale, most of which found their way to the 
common-place book, and were generally assigned to their 
author, under his initials of T. H. Many of these caudal 
vertebra, or tale-joints, as he himself banteringly termed 
them, I have ventured to expunge, as they would have 
swelled the work to a disproportionate size ; several of his 
bon-mots have suffered a similar fate ; though I am still 
apprehensive that I may be thought to have used the 
pruning knife much too sparingly. By his droll and flexible 
features, his power of mimicry, and his broad rustic humour, 
Tim was expressly qualified to be the wag of a provincial 
coterie j but where you cannot print the countenance and 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

manner, it is sometimes dangerous to publish the joke. Not 
a few of his jests, for he was as bold a plagiarist as his 
friend, were stolen from newspapers, or other equally ac- 
cessible sources ; while others may even be traced back to 
Joe Miller, an authority which is occasionally acknowledged 
under the Latin alias of Josephus Molitor. 

It will be seen, therefore, that the following little work 
cannot set up much claim to originality, either in its serious 
or jocose departments ; while even its form was suggested, 
as I have heard its author admit, by some humorous 
alphabetical definitions which appeared several years ago 
in one of our magazines. From the writer of those papers, 
as well as from all others who might serve his purpose, 
not excepting the Edinburgh Review, of which he was 
a constant reader, he borrowed without compunction. 
Wherever he made verbal quotations of any extent, it will 
be seen that he refers to the original; and he often re- 
gretted that the omission of noting down his authorities, 
prevented him from acknowledging them upon other and 
all occasions. With the materials thus accumulated, he 
interspersed, as he proceeded, his own sentiments upon 
every topic that called for their avowal. Knowing that they 
express the conscientious convictions of an eminently pious 
and virtuous man, I have published them without hesitation, 
but I think it right to put upon record my total dissent 
from many of his views and doctrines. Intimate, indeed, as 
was our friendship for a long course of years, we differed, 
to to cceto, upon most of the leading subjects that divide 
the opinions of mankind. In his Liberal, not to say Radical 
notions, I was decidedly opposed to him ; while my reve- 
rence for the Established Church, of which I am proud to 



xlv INTRODUCTION. 

call myself a member, made the discussion of its discipline 
and tenets, in both of which he maintained the necessity of 
a Reform, a forbidden subject between us. 

Deeming it impious to suppose that the investigation of 
truth, conscientiously pursued, could possibly lead to any 
other results than an additional confirmation of the great- 
ness, goodness, and glory of God, Dr. Chatfield was a 
fearless and zealous explorer of many questions which would 
have been avoided by the timid and the indifferent. Creeds, 
articles, and all the ceremonials of religion, he held in slight 
estimation, compared to heart-felt, practical, vital Christi- 
anity ; yet a more devout man I never knew. His religion 
was a sentiment in which his whole heart was steeped, and 
which exhibited itself in an ever present sense of profound 
gratitude to the Creator, and an all embracing love of his 
creatures. His strange, and sometimes startling notions 
exposed him to occasional attacks of considerable sharp- 
ness, which he invariably bore with such a Christian meek- 
ness, and defended himself with a sweetness so conciliatory 
and unassuming, that even those who impugned his opi- 
nions, could not help admiring their placid and philosophic 
maintainer. 

With such gentleness of disposition, it may seem that 
the satirical character, occasionally perceptible in his book, 
is not altogether in accordance ; but it may literally be 
affirmed of him, to use a homely saying, that his bark was 
worse than his bite. Personalities there are none throughout 
the whole work. Taking for his motto — " parcere personis, 
dicere de vitiis," — he visited the offence not the offender, 
regardless of the hacknied objection that, to exercise such 
a misplaced lenity, is to lash the dice and to spare the dicer. 



INTRODUCTION. xv 

That predilection for point and antithesis to which we have 
already alluded, and which forms the besetting sin of his 
stile, often betrayed him into a severity of expression quite 
foreign to his real nature. He might be caustic with his 
pen, especially if an epigrammatic turn were at stake; but 
his lips could not utter anything intentionally bitter, nor 
could his heart harbour a single angry feeling. This is 
not the place, however, to expatiate upon his character, 
as it is my intention to make his life, for which I had been 
collecting materials long before his decease, the subject of 
a second volume; and I avail myself of the present oppor- 
tunity, to request that his Yorkshire and other correspon- 
dents will add to my large stock of his amusing letters, by 
forwarding any that they may possess, to the Publisher of 
this work, under whose inspection they will be copied, and 
punctually, as well as thankfully returned, to their respective 
owners. 

Most of the peasants and cotters in the northern and 
western wapentakes of Yorkshire, were familiar with the 
Doctor's old white-tailed dun horse, as well as with his 
antique broad-winged whiskey. In the boot of this rickety 
vehicle were usually stowed a medicine-chest, a box of 
linen, and other travelling indispensables, the respective 
packages being steadied by a few well-worn books wedged 
in between them. Latterly he had seldom made an ex- 
cursion without " honest Tim," whose pranks, jokes, and 
buffooneries, lent some support to the idea entertained by 
many strangers, on their first appearance, that the compa- 
nions were an itinerant Quacksalver and his Zany. Nor 
was it easy to remove this impression, so far as the Merry 
Andrew was concerned ; but it was impossible to gaze upon 



xvi INTRODUCTION. 

the- benevolent countenance of his friend, whose Quaker's 
attire, bald forehead, and silver side locks descending to 
his shoulders, gave him altogether a most venerable appear- 
ance, without a quick conviction that his errand was one 
of pure philanthropy, — and that his purposes, like his aspect, 
were high and holy. 

By his will, Dr. Chatfield bequeathed to the Editor, the 
whole of his manuscripts, consisting of tales, ancient and 
modern — fugitive poems — a few essays on medical subjects, 
and the volumes now submitted to the public. From his 
poems I have made such a selection as will afford a fair 
sample of his general powers in this department of litera- 
ture. They exhibit much smoothness and facility in the 
versification, and no small diversity of stile, since they are 
perfectly free from the forced conceits and artificial glitter 
of his prose compositions. Respecting the Tales, he left 
no instructions — and future circumstances must decide 
whether any of them shall ever see the light; but it was 
one of his last requests that "The Tin Trumpet" should 
be prepared for immediate publication. The quantity and 
the confusion of the materials, rendered their selection and 
arrangement a matter of no small difficulty and of some 
unexpected delay ; but I have executed my task to the best 
of my ability and judgment, and I now commit the work to 
the indulgence of the reader, again requesting him to bear 
in mind that I broadly dissent from many of the crude 
notions and fanciful theories broached by my late excellent 

but eccentric friend. 

J. S. 

Harrowgate, 

February, 1836. 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



Ad Candidum Lectorein. 

Cum legis hunc nostrum, Lector studiose, libellum, 

Decedat vultu tetrica ruga tuo. 
Non sunt haec tristi conscripta Catonibus ore, 

Non Heraclitis, non gravibus Curiis : 
Sed si Heracliti, Curii, si forte Catones, 

Adjicere hue oculos et legere ista velint, 
Multa hie invenient quag possint pellere curas, 

Plurima quae msestos exhilarare queant. 



THE TIN TRUMPET; 



HEADS AND TALES. 




B.C.DARIAN — seems to have been an ancient 
term for a pedagogue. Wood, in his Athense 
Oxonienses, speaking of Thomas Farnabie, 
says — " When he landed in Cornwall, his dis- 
tresses made him stoop so low, as to be an 
A.b.c.darian, and several were taught their horn books by 
him." By assuming this title, its wearer certainly proves 
himself to be a man of letters ; but my friend T. H. suggests, 
that the schoolmaster who wishes to establish his aptitude 
for his office, instead of taking the three first, had better 
designate himself by the two last letters of the alphabet. 



ABLATIVE CASE— one that now is, or very soon will 
be, applicable to usurped power, to unjust privileges, and 
to abuses of all sorts. Though the schoolmaster is abroad, 
the times are more ungrammatical than ever. A borough- 
monger has ceased to be in the nominative case ; there is no 
longer a dative case to the Pension List ; and when the 
public is in the accusative case, it governs the party or thing 
implicated, and makes it fall into the ablative case abso- 
lute. Though corruptions are nouns substantive, they cannot 

B 



2 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

stand by themselves ; and abuses, which used to be plural, 
will soon become singular. The verb "to love" is declined, 
not conjugated. Standard words, to which the utmost im- 
portance was attached by the wisdom of our ancestors, such, 
for instance, as " rotten boroughs," are arbitrarily cut off by 
elision. When John Bull is in the imperative mood, he is 
now, at the same time, in the potential ; while the present 
tense has no longer the smallest reference to the past, pro- 
vided it can improve the future. But we have still more 
startling changes ; — Lady A. is a masculine, and Lord B. is 
a feminine person. What can be expected but irregularity 
and disturbance, when our grammar is in such a state of 
anarchy ? This comes of Reform ! ! Ah ! it is to be feared 
that we shall none of us have the consolation of Danjeau, 
the French grammarian, who, when told that a revolution 
was approaching, exclaimed, rubbing his hands, " Well, come 
what may, I have two hundred verbs well conjugated in my 
desk!" 

ABLUTION — a duty somewhat too strictly inculcated in 
the Mahometan ritual, and sometimes too laxly observed 
in Christian practice. As a man may have a dirty body, 
and an undefiled mind, so may he have clean hands in a 
literal, and not in a metaphorical sense. All washes and 
cosmetics without, he may yet labour under a moral hydro- 
phobia within. Pleasant to see an im-puritan of this stamp 
holding his nose, lest the wind should come between an 
honest scavenger and his gentility, while his own character 
stinks in the public nostrils. Oh, if the money and the 
pains that we bestow upon perfumes and adornments for 
the body, were applied to the purification and embellish- 
ment of the mind ! Oh ! if we were as careful to polish our 
manners as our teeth, to make our temper as sweet as our 
breath, to cut off our peccadilloes as to pare our nails, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 3 

to be as upright in character as in person, to save our 
souls as to shave our chins, what an immaculate race should 
we become ! Exteriorly, we are not a filthy people. We 
throw so much dirt at our neighbours, that we have none 
left for ourselves. We are only unclean in our hearts and 
lives. As occasional squalor is the worst evil of poverty 
and labour, so should constant cleanliness be the greatest 
luxury of wealth and ease ; yet even our aristocracy are 
not altogether without reproach in this respect. It is well 
known, that the celebrated Lord Nelson had not washed 
his hands for the last eight years of his life. Alas 1 upon 
what trifles may our reputation for cleanliness depend ! 
Even a foreign accent may ruin us. In a trial, where a 
German and his wife were giving evidence, the former was 
asked by the counsel, " How old are you ?" — " I am dirty" 
— " And what is your wife ? " — " Mine wife is dirty-two."— 
" Then, Sir, you are a very nasty couple, and I wish to have 
nothing further to say to either of you." 

ABRIDGMENT — anything contracted into a small com- 
pass; such, for instance, as the abridgment of the statutes 
in twenty volumes, folio. To make a good abridgment, 
requires as much time and talent as to write an original 
work ; a fact of which the reader will find abundant proof as 
he proceeds ! When Queen Anne told Dr. South that his 
sermon had only one fault — that of being too short, — he 
replied, that he should have made it shorter if he had had 
more time. How comes it that no enterprising bookseller 
has ever thought of publishing " an Abridgment of the Lives 
of the Fathers ?" I know not whether the religious public 
would give it encouragement, but I am confident, that in 
this land of primogeniture and entailed estates, there is not 
an heir in the three kingdoms who would not exert himself 
to ensure its success. 

b 2 



4 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

ABSCESS — a morbid tumour, frequently growing above 
the shoulders, and swelling to a considerable size, when it 
comes to a head, with nothing in it. It is not always a 
natural disease, for nature abhors a vacuum ; yet fools, fops, 
and fanatics are very subject to it, and it sometimes attacks 
old women of both sexes. " I wish to consult you upon a 
little project I have formed," said a noodle to his friend. 
" I have an idea in my head — " " Have you ?" interposed the 
friend, with a look of great surprise ; " then you shall have 
my opinion at once : keep it there / — it may be some time 
before you get another." 

ABSOLUTE GOVERNMENT.— There is a simplicity 
and unity in despotism, which is not without its advantages, 
if every despot were to be a Titus or a Vespasian — to 
unite great talents with a clement and benevolent heart. 
But the chances against such a fortunate conjunction are 
almost incalculable; and even where it occurs, its effects 
may be suddenly defeated, and the best sovereign be con- 
verted into the worst, by an attack of gout, or a fit of 
indigestion. Besides, there are few who can drink of un- 
restrained power, without being intoxicated, or, perhaps, 
maddened. Nero, before he succeeded to the crown, was 
remarkable for his moderation and humanity. So true is 
the dictum of Tacitus, that the throne of a despot is gene- 
rally ascended by a wild beast. Free institutions are the 
best, indeed the only security, both for the governed and 
the governor; for there is no remedy against a tyrant but 
assassination, of which ultima ratio populi, even our own 
times have furnished instances at St. Petersburg and 
Constantinople. An hereditary monarchy with institutions 
adapted to the state of knowledge, and the diffusion of 
moral power, or, in other words, leaning towards republi- 
canism, seems to be the form of government most appro- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 5 

priate for a civilized and enlightened nation in the nine- 
teenth century. The greatest strength should be at the base, 
not at the top ; for it is as difficult to overturn a pyramid, as 
to preserve the equilibrium of an inverted cone. What an 
illustration of the spirit of the times, and what an instructive 
lesson to monarchs, is the startling fact, that the present 
rulers of Sweden, France, and Belgium, are not the regular 
inheritors of the crowns they wear, but sovereigns elected 
by the most powerful of all sovereigns — the people ; while 
the pseudo-legitimate kings of Portugal and Spain have been 
formally repudiated, and are wanderers on the face of the 
earth ! Few modern despots can calculate on being so 
fortunate as the Turk Mustapha, who, having rebelled 
against his brother, was taken prisoner, and ordered for 
execution on the following morning. The Sultan, however, 
being suddenly seized with the colic, accompanied, per- 
haps, with some fraternal, as well as internal qualms, 
ordered the decapitation to be deferred for two days, during 
which he died, and his imprisoned brother quietly suc- 
ceeded to the throne. " O happy Mustapha ! " exclaimed 
the Sultaness, "you were born to be lucky, for you have 
not only derived life from your mother's stomach, but from 
your brother's !" 

ABSOLUTION, Self — generously pronouncing our 
own pardon. Such is the power in the human mind of 
adapting itself to circumstances, that we can reconcile our- 
selves, at least, partially, to our own crimes and infamy. 
The stings of conscience would be intolerable, could we 
not lay some nattering unction to our souls, and steal relief 
from self-delusion. It may be doubted, whether the greatest 
villain in the world ever thought himself much worse than 
some of his neighbours, or was ever without his share of those 
extenuating pleas, subterfuges, and shufflings, in which the 



6 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

mind is so subtle a casuist. A man is sure of his own good 
word, and if it be the* only one he has to expect, he draws 
upon it the more liberally. Another is worse than himself, 
or he fancies him to be so, and he forthwith imagines that 
he is a moral character, because he is not the basest pro- 
fligate in existence. We claim praise for not having pushed 
our vices farther, but we feel no shame for having carried 
them so far ; as if there were a positive merit in sinning, pro- 
vided we stop short of the ne plus ultra of turpitude. 

ABSURDITY — anything advanced by our opponents, 
contrary to our own practice, or above our comprehension, — 
and, therefore, a term very liberally used, because it is ap- 
plied in exact proportion to our own ignorance. Nothing to 
which we are so quick-sighted in another, so blind in our- 
selves, not only individually, but nationally. " Comment /" 
exclaims the French sailor in Josephus Molitor, when he 
saw Ironmonger Lane written on the corner of a street in 
London, which he read, "Irons manger Pane." — " Comment 1 
Es qe qu^on mange des anes dans qe pays ci ? Mais, quelle 
absurdite '/" How many of us, in travelling, exhibit our own, 
in imputing an imaginary absurdity to others ! " How ridi- 
culous !" exclaims the travelled servant in one of Dr. Moore's 
novels, " to dress the French regiments of the line in blue, 
— a colour which, as all the world knows, is only proper for 
the Oxford Blues and the Artillery." Some of our highest 
classes are unconscious imitators of the knight of the 
shoulder-knot. 

Of the Reductio ad absurdum, a very useful weapon of logic 
in arguing with ultras of any class, I know not a happier 
illustration than the Duke of Buckingham's reply to Dryden's 
famous line — 

"My wound is great, because it is so small." 
" Then 'twould be greater were it none at all." 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 7 

ABUSE, Intemperate — excites our sympathies, not for the 
abuser, but the abusee, a fact which some of our virulent 
critics and political writers are very apt to forget. Like 
other poisons, when administered in too strong a dose, it is 
thrown off by the intended victim, and often relieves, where 
it was meant to destroy. If the wielder of the weapon be 
such an unskilful sportsman as to overcharge his piece, he 
must not be surprised if it explode, and wound no one but 
himself. Dirt wantonly cast, only acts like fullers' earth, 
defiling for the moment, but purifying in the end ; so that 
those who are the most bespattered, come out the most im- 
maculate. Pleasant was the well-known revenge of the 
vilipended author, who having in vain endeavoured to pro- 
pitiate his critic by returning eulogy for abuse, sent him at 
last the following epigram : — 

' ' With industry I spread your praise, 
With equal you my censure blaze ; 
But faith ! 'tis all in vain we do, 
The world believes' nor me, nor you." 

ABUSES — see Tory Administration, passim. Thank 
Heaven, the times are changed, and those who refuse to give 
up abuses, will inevitably be called upon to surrender uses. 
Will they take a hint, and make a compromise in time, or 
like the boroughmongers, dig a pit for themselves to fall 
into ? For their own sakes I hope they will yield in time ; 
for the sake of the country I might wish them to be obstinate. 

ACCIDENT. — Fanatics, whose inordinate conceit prompts 
them to believe that the Deity must be more engrossed with 
the affairs of an obscure Muggletonian in Ebenezer Alley, 
Shoreditch, than with the general and immutable laws of the 
universe, presumptuously wrest every unexpected occurrence, 
in which themselves are concerned, into a particular Provi- 



8 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

dence, more especially if it be an escape from any sort of 
danger. As the risk, however, must come from the same 
source as the deliverance, — as a providential escapej may 
with equal propriety be termed a providential exposure to 
imminent peril, — this hazardous doctrine, like a two-edged 
sword, must cut both ways ; and according to the sanguine 
or desponding temperament of the expounder, will tend to 
generate either an overwhelming arrogance, or a dark 
despair. A plot is formed, to way-lay and murder a man, on 
his way home at night. He gets drunk, takes the wrong 
road and escapes. Even a Muggletonian would hesitate at 
calling this a providential intoxication, and yet he often uses 
the term when it is quite as inapplicable and indecorous. 
Occurrences of this description may be improved into moral 
warnings without supposing any special deviation from the 
laws of nature. There is a Providence ever watching over 
the destinies of mankind, but we should not the less on that 
account observe the maxim of Horace — Nee Deus intersit 
nisi dignus vindice nodus. The uncharitable forgetfulness 
of this rule was once well reproved by Voltaire, who hap- 
pened to be in company with a fanatical old lady during a 
violent thunder storm, when she screamed out, that the 
house would be dashed to pieces upon their heads on 
account of his impiety. " Know, madam," said the Patriarch 
— " that I have said more good of the Deity in a single verse, 
than you will ever think of him in the whole course of your 
life." 

Father Mabillon, who had been of a very narrow capacity 
in his youth, fell, at the age of twenty-six, against a stone 
staircase, fractured his skull, was trepanned, and after that 
operation, possessed a luminous understanding, and an 
astonishing zeal for study. We submit this accident to the 
joint and serious consideration of the Muggletonians and 
Phrenologists, but without recommending either party to 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 9 

anticipate the same results, should they be disposed to make 
a similar experiment upon their own skulls. 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS— in women all that can be sur> 
plied by the dancing-master, music-master, mantua-maker 
and milliner : in men, tying a cravat, talking nonsense, 
playing at billiards, dressing like a real, and driving like an 
amateur coachman. The latter is an excusable ambition, 
even in our noblemen, for it shows that they know them- 
selves, and have found a properer place, and more congenial 
elevation than the peerage. Some there are, who, deeming 
dissolute manners an accomplishment, endeavour to show 
by their profligacy that they know the world, an example 
which might be dangerous, but that the world knows them. 
Accomplishments are sociable — but nothing so sociable as a 
cultivated mind. 

ACTOR. — How often do we quote Shakspeare's dictum, 
that— 

"All the world's a stage, 

And all the men and women merely players," 

without reflecting upon its close applicability, not only to the 
classes he has specified, but to almost every individual in 
existence. The laws of society, and the restraints upon 
opinion, compel us all to be actors and hypocrites, simulators 
and dissimulators; and the more servile the observance of 
this slavish disingenuousness, the greater the assumed civili- 
zation ! Oh, for a week's social intercourse in the Palace of 
Truth of M. de Genlis, that we might see what capital actors 
we have all been when out of it ; especially those who had 
been playing the parts of Maw-worm and Cantwell ! 

Diderot has endeavoured to prove that in the delineation 
of the passions — " He best shall paint them who shall feel 
them least," and that an actor, injured rather than benefited 



10 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

by an intense feeling of the emotions he represents, is never 
so sure to agitate the souls of his hearers, as when his own 
is perfectly at ease. We believe that he may excite without 
being excited, for the same reason that the most sensitive 
young lady will remain unmoved at the hundredth re-perusal 
of the tragedy, which at first drew a flood of tears from her 
eyes ; but the mimic, in order to carry our sympathies with 
him, must at least have a certain degree of susceptibility in 
himself. How can he successfully study or understand a 
character if totally incapable of feeling it? Speaking, as it 
were, an unknown language, he must deliver it, without 
adaptation or expression, and consequently without effect.— 
His emotion may be as transient as you please, but it must 
be once felt, once impressed upon the actor, if it is to impress 
the audience. To suppose that studied and artificial, can be 
more appropriate to the stage than real passion, is a contra- 
diction in terms, for it is a remarkable fact, that deep and 
genuine emotion, even in the humblest persons, is never un- 
dignified, never ungraceful. 

An adherence to nature, however, is by no means incom- 
patible with a due regard to the Thespian art, which requires 
elaborate study, and to a heightening of the effect by profes- 
sional, or even mechanical aids. Vivid conception, and 
keen sensibility, will not of themselves make a good actor ; 
but it may be questioned, whether a good actor can be made 
without them. Rare indeed is the physical and moral com- 
bination that produces a superior performer, as will at once 
appear if we compare the best amateur, with a second or 
even a third rate professional actor. What miserable mum- 
mery are private theatricals ! At those given last year at 

Hatfield House, old General G was pressed by a lady to 

say whom he liked best of all the actors. Notwithstanding 
his usual bluntness, he evaded the question for some time, 
but being importuned for an answer, he at length growled, — 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. n 

" Well, madam, if you will have a reply, I liked the prompter 
the best, because I heard the most of him, and saw the least 
of him!" 

ADDRESS — generally a string of fulsome compliments 
and professions, indiscriminately lavished upon every king 
or individual in authority, in order to assure him of the par- 
ticular, personal, and exclusive veneration in which he is 
held by those who, being the very obedient humble servants 
of circumstances, would pay equal homage to Jack Ketch, if 
he possessed equal power. In the latter case, they would 
perhaps attempt to dignify his person, and his office by some 
courteous periphrase, or concealing both beneath the appro- 
priate veil of a dead language, would speak of him as — Vir 
excellentissimus, strangulandi peritus. 

In a Shrewsbury Address to James I., his loyal subjects 
expressed a wish that he might reign over them as long as 
sun, moon, and stars should endure. — "I suppose, then," 
observed the monarch, "they mean my successor to reign 
by candle-light." 

ADMIRATION. — We always love those who admire us, 
says Rochefoucauld, — but we do not always love those whom 
we admire. From the latter clause an exception might have 
been made in favour of self, for self-love is the source of self- 
admiration ; and this is the safest of all loves, for most 
people may indulge it without the fear of a rival. 

ADMITTING yourself out of court — a legal phrase, signi- 
fying a liberality of concession to your opponent by which 
you destroy your own cause. This excess of candour was 
well illustrated by the Irishman, who boasted that he had 
often skated sixty miles a day. " Sixty miles !" exclaimed 
an auditor — " that is a great distance : it must have been 



12 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

accomplished when the days were longest." — " To be sure it 
was ; I admit that," cried the ingenious Hibernian. 

ADULTERER — one who has been guilty of perjury } 
commonly accompanied with ingratitude and hypocrisy, an 
offence softened down by the courtesy of a sympathising 
world, into " a man of gallantry, a gay person somewhat too 
fond -of intrigue ;" or a woman "who has had a little slip, 
committed a faux pas" &c. — " Pleasant but wrong," was the 
apology of the country squire, who being detected in an in- 
trigue with the frail rib of his groom, maintained that he had 
not offended against the law, since we are only commanded 
not to sin with another man's wife, whereas, this was his own 
man's wife. 

ADVERSITY — is very often a blessing in disguise, which 
by detaching us from earth and drawing us towards heaven, 
gives us, in the assurance of lasting joys, an abundant 
recompence for the loss of transient ones. " Whom the 
Lord loveth he chasteneth." Many a man in losing his 
fortune has found himself, and been ruined into salvation ; 
for though God demands the whole heart, which we could 
not give him when we shared it with the world, he will never 
reject the broken one, which we offer him in our hour of 
sadness and reverse. Misfortunes are moral bitters, which 
frequently restore the healthy tone of the mind, after it has 
been cloyed and sickened by the sweets of prosperity. The 
spoilt children of the world, like their juvenile namesakes, 
are generally a source of unhappiness to others, without 
being happy in themselves. 

ADVICE — almost the only commodity which the world 
is lavish in bestowing, and scrupulous in receiving, although 
it may be had grate's, with an allowance to those who take a 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 13 

quantity. We seldom ask it until it is too late, and still 
more rarely take it while there is yet time to profit by it. 
Great tact and delicacy are required, either in conferring or 
seeking this perilous boon, for where people do not take your 
counsel they generally take offence; and even where they 
do, you can never be sure that you have not given pain in 
giving advice. We have our revenge for this injustice. If 
an acquaintance pursue some unfortunate course, in spite of 
our dissuasions, we feel more gratified by the confirmation of 
our evil auguries, than hurt by the misfortunes of our friend ; 
for that man must be a sturdy moralist who does not love 
his own judgment better than the interest of his neighbours. 
This may help to explain Rochefoucauld's dictum, that there 
is something, even in the misfortunes of our best friends, 
which is not altogether displeasing to us. 

To decline all advice, unless the example of the giver con- 
firms his precepts, would be about as sapient as if a traveller 
were to refuse to follow the directions of a finger-post, unless 
it drew its one leg out of the ground, and walked, or rather 
hopped after its own finger. 

ADVOWSON — the purchaseable right (purchaseable 
even by a Jew, Pagan, or Mahometan,) of controlling the 
souls of a whole parish by appointing the clergyman, from 
whom its inhabitants must receive their spiritual instruction, 
and to whom they are compelled to pay tithes, even although 
they should disapprove his doctrine, despise his abilities, and 
dislike his character. Advowsons are temporal inheritances, 
which may be granted by deed or will, and are assets in the 
hands of executors ; so carefully is the worship of Mammon 
preserved by those who solemnly protest that they are not 
given to filthy lucre ! A clergyman may purchase a next 
presentation, provided the living be not actually vacant at 
the time ; and even where it is, he may accomplish that 



i 4 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

object, through the instrumentality of friends, without incur- 
ring the penalties of Simony. We should deem it a mon- 
strous oppression, were an apothecary or a lawyer to be 
imposed upon a populous and enlightened parish at the 
arbitrary fiat of a patron, who would not hear of objection, 
or even of inquiry into his character and capacity ; and yet 
the wrong in the imposition of a spiritual guide is still more 
flagrant, by the whole difference between the soul and the 
body, between time and eternity. 

Can the clerical purchaser of a next presentation be always 
sure that he will not sigh for the death of the incumbent, 
because he sighs for his living ? If not, religion, reason, and 
justice, seem equally to require that the temptation of saleable 
advowsons should be removed from his path, and that these 
spiritual rotten boroughs should be consigned to the tomb of 
their parliamentary brethren in schedule A. 

AFFECTION, Filial — an implanted instinct, exalted by a 
feeling of gratitude and a sense of duty. — The Roman 
daughter, who nourished her imprisoned father, when con- 
demned to be starved to death, from her own breast, has 
generally been adduced as the noblest recorded instance of 
filial affection ; but the palm may almost be contested by an 
Irish son, if we may receive without suspicion the evidence 
of a fond and doting father — " Ah now, my darlint ! " ex- 
claimed the latter, when his boy threatened to enlist in the 
army — " would you be laving your poor ould father that 
doats upon ye ? You, the best and the most dutiful of all 
my children, and the only one that never struck me when I 
was down ! " 

AFFLICTION. — A French writer, arguing, perhaps, from 
the analogy of the English language, wherein two negatives 
constitute an affirmative, observes that deux afflictions wises 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 15 

ensemble fteuvent devenir une consolation, an experiment 
which few, we apprehend, will be anxious to try. Man has 
been termed the child of affliction, an affiliation of which the 
writer does not recognise the truth ; but for the benefit of 
those who hold a contrary opinion, he ventures to plagiarise 
a few stanzas versified from a prose apologue of Dr. 
Sheridan — 

Affliction one day, as she hark'd to the roar 

Of the stormy and struggling billow, 
Drew a beautiful form on the sands of the shore, 

With the branch of a weeping willow. 

Jupiter, struck with the noble plan, 

As he roamed on the verge of the ocean, 
Breathed on the figure, and calling it man, 

Endued it with life and motion. 

A creature so glorious in mind and in frame, 

So stamp'd with each parent's impression, 
Among them a point of contention became, 

Each claiming the right of possession. 

" He is mine," said Affliction ; "I gave him his birth, 

I alone am his cause of creation." — 
"The materials were furnished by me," answered Earth — 

" I gave him," said Jove, " animation." 

The gods all assembled in solemn divan, 

After hearing each claimant's petition, 
Pronounced a definitive verdict on man, 

And thus settled his fate's disposition. 

" Let Affliction possess her own child, till the woes 

Of life cease to harass and goad it ; 
After death give his body to earth, whence it rose, 

And his spirit to Jove, who bestowed it." 

AGE, Old — an infirmity which nobody knows. Nothing 
can exceed our early impatience to escape from youth to 
manhood, and appear older than we are, except our subse- 



16 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

quent anxiety to obtain the reputation of being younger than 
we are. The first longing is natural, for Hope is before us, 
and it seems possible to anticipate that which we must soon 
reach ; but the second is a weakness, not less strange than 
general, for we cannot expect to recover that from which we 
are perpetually flying, or avoid that to which we are in- 
cessantly approaching. If by putting back our own date, 
we could arrest the great clock of time, there would be an 
intelligible motive for our conduct. Alas ! the time-piece of 
old Chronos never stops. 

Women, who imagine their influence to depend upon their 
personal attractions, naturally wish to preserve their youth. 
It is in their power to do so ; for she who captivates the 
heart and the understanding, never grows old : and as men 
are generally estimated by their moral and intellectual, rather 
than their baptismal recommendations ; as a philosopher of 
fifty is preferred, by all those whose preference is worth 
having, to a fool of twenty, there is something very con- 
temptible in a male horror of senility. So prevalent, how- 
ever, is the feeling, that, with the exception of one individual, 
who has obtained an enviable immortality as " middle age 
Hallam," we have no chronology for men and women at, or 
beyond the meridian of life. They are all " persons of a 
certain age," which is the most w^certain one upon record. 
Complimentary in everything, the French say of a woman 
thus circumstanced, that she is femme d'un age raisonnable, 
as if she had gained, in her reasoning faculties, what she had 
lost in personal charms ; and this, doubtless, ought to be the 
process with us all. To our mind, as to a preserving green- 
house, should we transfer, in the winter of life, the attractions 
of our spring and summer. 

As variety is universally allowed to be pleasing, the 
diversity occasioned by the progress of age should, in itself, 
be a source of delight. Perpetual sunshine would soon be 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 17 

found more annoying than an alternation of the seasons ; so 
would a continuous youth be more irksome than the gradual 
approach of old age. Existence may be compared to a 
drum, which has only one single tone ; but change of time 
gives it variety and cheerfulness enough. 

The infirmity of falsifying our age is at least as old as 
Cicero, who, hearing one of his contemporaries attempting 
to make himself ten years younger than he really was, drily 
observed — " Then at the time you and I were at school 
together, you were not born." 

ALCHYMIST.— The true possessor of the philosopher's 
stone is the miner, whose iron, copper, and tin are always 
convertible into the more precious metals. Agriculture is 
the noblest of all alchymy, for it turns earth, and even 
manure, into gold, conferring upon its cultivator the addi- 
tional reward of health. Most appropriate was the rebuke 
of Pope Leo X., who, when a visionary pretended to have 
discovered the philosopher's stone, and demanded a recom- 
pence, gave him an empty purse. 

ALCORAN.— In the life of Mahomet, prefixed to Reland's 
work, " De Religione Mohammedica," is the following pas- 
sage, allusive to the peculiar tenets of the Moammarites, a 
famous sect among the Mahometans : — " Suppose," say they, 
"we should resolve all our faith into the sole text of the 
Alcoran, the difficulty and uncertainty will still remain, if we 
consider how many metaphors, allegories, and other figures 
of speech, — how many obscure, ambiguous, intricate, and 
mysterious passages are to be met with in this infallible 
book, — and how different are the opinions, expositions, and 
interpretations, of the most subtle doctors and learned com- 
mentators on every one of them. The only sure way, then," 
add they, " to come to the certain knowledge of the truth, is 



i8 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

to consult God himself, wait His inspirations, live just and 
honest lives, be kind and beneficent to all our fellow-creatures, 
and pity such as differ from us in their opinions about the 
authority, integrity, and meaning of the Alcoran." — What a 
contrast does the charitable and Christian-like feeling of 
these Moammarites afford to some of our own unchristian 
fanatics, who, setting themselves up for stewards of the 
mysteries, affix their own meaning — often a very revolting 
one — to " the letter that killeth f and if we hesitate to 
receive their interpretations, immediately begin to " deal 
damnation round the land 1" 

ALDERMAN — a ventri-potential citizen, into whose 
mediterranean mouth good things are perpetually flowing, 
although none come out. His shoulders, like some of the 
civic streets, are " widened at the expense of the corpora- 
tion." He resembles Wolsey ; not in ranking himself with 
princes, but in being a man " of an unbounded stomach." A 
tooth is the only wise thing in his head, and he has nothing 
particularly good about him, except his digestion, which is 
an indispensable quality, since he is destined to become 
great by gormandising, to masticate his way to the Mansion- 
house, and thus, like a mouse in a cheese, to provide for 
himself a large dwelling, by continually eating. His talent 
is in his jaws ; and like a miller, the more he grinds the 
more he gets. From the quantity he devours, it might be 
supposed that he had two stomachs, like a cow, were it not 
manifest that he is no ruminating animal. 

ALMS. — To this word there is no singular, in order to 
teach us that a solitary act of charity scarcely deserves the 
name. Nothing is won by one gift. To render our bounties 
available, they must be in the plural number. It is always 
wise to be charitable, but it is almost peculiar to my friend 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 19 

L that he is often witty in his bounties. He was about 

to assist with a sum of money a scribbler in distress, when 
he was reminded that he had on more than one occasion 
been libelled and maligned by the intended object of his 

bounty. " Pooh," said L , " I have so long known all 

his slanders by heart, that they have quite gone out of my 
head." 

ALPHABET — twenty-six symbols which represent singly 
or in combination, all the sounds of all the languages upon 
earth. By forming letters into words, which are the signs of 
ideas, we are enabled to embody thought, to render it visible, 
audible, perpetual, and ubiquitous. Embalmed in writing, 
the intellect may thus enjoy a species of immortality upon 
earth, and every man may paint an imperishable portrait of 
his own mind, immeasurably more instructive and interesting 
to posterity than those fleeting. likenesses of the face and 
form entrusted to canvas, or even to bronze and marble. 
What myriads have passed away, body and mind, leaving 
not a wreck behind them, while the mental features of some 
contemporary writer survive in all the freshness and integrity 
with which they were first traced. Were I a literary painter 
how often should I be tempted in the pride of my heart, to 
exclaim with the celebrated artist, " Ed to anche sono 
Pittore? 

Although the word be derived from the two first letters of 
the Greek, every alphabet now in use may be traced with 
historical certainty to one original — the Phenician or Syriac. 
" Phenicia and Palestine," says Gibbon, " will for ever live 
in the memory of mankind ; since America, as well as 
Europe, has received letters from the one and religion from 
the other." 

One of the earlier French princes being too indolent or 
too stupid to acquire his alphabet by the ordinary process, 



ao THE TIN TRUMPET; 

twenty-four servants were placed in attendance upon him, 
each, with a huge letter painted upon his stomach ; as he 
knew not their names, he was obliged to call them by their 
letter when he wanted their services, which in due time gave 
him the requisite degree of literature for the exercise of the 
royal functions. 

AMBIGUITY — a quality deemed essentially necessary 
to the clear understanding of diplomatic writings, acts of 
parliament, and law proceedings. 

AMBITION — a mental dropsy, which keeps continually 
swelling and increasing, until it kills its victim. Ambition is 
often overtaken by calamity, because it is not aware of its 
pursuer and never looks behind. " Deeming naught done 
while aught remains to do," it is necessarily restless ; unable 
to bear anything above it, discontent must be its inevitable 
portion, for even if the pinnacle of worldly power be gained, 
its occupant will sigh, like Alexander, for another globe to 
conquer. Every day that brings us some new advancement 
or success, brings us also a day nearer to death, embittering 
the reflection, that the more we have gained, the more we 
have to relinquish. Aspiring to nothing but humility, the 
wise man will make it the height of his ambition to be un- 
ambitious. As he cannot effect all that he wishes, he will 
only wish for that which he can effect. 

AMBLE. — Of this indefinite and intermediate pace, which, 
(to adopt the Johnsonian style) " without the concussiveness 
of the trot, or the celerity of the canter, neither contributes 
to the conservation of health, nor to the economy of time, 
nothing can be pronounced in eulogy, and little therefore 
need be said in description." To those elderly gentlemen, 
nevertheless, who are willing to sacrifice the perilous repu- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 21 

tation of a good seat for the comfort of a safe one ; an 
ambling nag has always been an equestrian beatitude. Such 
was the feeling of the Sexagenarian, who took his ( horse to 
the nienage, that it might be taught the " old gentleman's 
pace." As the riding-master, after several trials, could not 
immediately succeed in his object, the owner of the animal 
petulantly cried out — " Zooks, Sir, do you call this an 
amble ? " — " No, Sir," was the reply, " I call it a pre- 
amble." 

ANCESTRY.— 

" They who on length of ancestry enlarge, 
Produce their debt instead of a discharge." 

They search in the root of the tree for those fruits which the 
branches ought to produce, and too often resemble potatoes, 
of which the best part is under ground. Pedigree is the 
boast of those who have nothing else to vaunt. In what 
respect, after all, are they superior to the humblest of their 
neighbours ? Every man's ancestors double at each remove 
in geometrical proportion, so that after only twenty genera- 
tions, he has above a million of progenitors. A duke has no 
more ; a dustman has no less. 

A river generally becomes narrower and more insignifi- 
cant, as we ascend to its source. The stream of ancestry, on 
the contrary, often vigorous, pure, and powerful at its foun- 
tain head, usually becomes more feeble, shallow, and corrupt 
as it flows downwards. Some of our ancient families, whose 
origin is lost in the darkness of antiquity, and into whose 
hungry maws the tide of patronage is for ever flowing, may 
be compared to the Nile, which has many mouths, and no 
discoverable head. Nobles sometimes illustrate that name 
about as much as an Italian Cicerone recalls the idea of 
Cicero. 

It is a double shame to a man to have derived distinction 



22 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

from his predecessors, if he bequeath disgrace to his 
posterity. 

' ' Heraldic honours on the base, 

Do but degrade their wearers more, 
As sweeps, whom May-day trappings grace, 
Show ten times blacker than before." 

ANCIENTS — dead bones used for the purpose of knock- 
ing down live flesh. Every puny Samson thinks he may 
wield his ass's jaw-bone in assaulting his contemporaries, by 
comparing them with their predecessors. If architects 
attempt any thing original, they are ridiculed for their pains, 
and desired to stick to the five orders. This is the sixth 
order of the public. If artists follow the bent of their own 
genius, they are tauntingly referred by their new masters to 
the old masters, and desired not to indulge their own crude 
capriccios. Authors are schooled and catechized in the same 
way ; but when either of the three conform to the instructions 
of their critics, they are instantly and unmercifully assailed 
as servile imitators, without a single grain of originality. 
Whether, therefore, they allow the ancients to be imitable or 
inimitable it is manifest that they only exalt them in order to 
lower their contemporaries, and that their suffrages would be 
reversed, if the ancients and moderns were to change places. 
With a similar jealousy we give a preference to old wine, old 
books, and an old friend, unless the latter should appear in 
the form of an old joke, when he is treated with the utmost 
scorn and contumely. As this is equally reprehensible and 
inconsistent, I shall endeavour to cure my readers of any 
such propensity, by habituating them to encounters with 
some of their old Joe Miller acquaintance. 

ANGER — punishing ourselves for the faults of another; 
or committing an additional error, if we are incensed at our 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 23 

own mistakes. In either case, wrath may aggravate, but was 
never known to diminish our annoyance. " I wish," says 
Seneca, "that anger could always be exhausted, when its first 
weapon was broken, and that like the bees, who leave their 
stings in the wound they make, we could only inflict a single 
injury." To a certain extent this wish is often fulfilled, for 
the same writer observes, that anger is like a ruin, which, in 
falling upon its victim, breaks itself to pieces. 

Without any other armour than an offended frown, an in- 
dignant eye, and a rebuking voice, decrepit age, timid 
womanhood, the weakest of our species, may daunt the most 
daring, for there is something formidable in the mere sight 
of wrath; even where it is incapable of inflicting any chastise- 
ment upon its provoker. It has thus a preventive operation, 
by making us cautious of calling it forth, and restrains more 
effectually by the fear of its ebullitions, than it could by their 
actual outbreakings ; while it still retains a positive influence 
when aroused. Anger, in short, is a moral power, which 
tends to repair the inequalities of physical power, and to 
approximate the strong and the weak towards the same 
level. 

So carefully, however, are our constitutional instincts 
guarded against abuse, that the moral and physical vigour 
imparted to us by anger as a salutary means of defence, is 
immediately lessened, when by its intemperate and reckless 
exercise, we would pervert it into a dangerous instrument of. 
aggression. Blind and ungovernable rage, approaching to 
the nature of madness, not only obscures the reason, but 
often paralyses, for the moment, the bodily energies ; a 
paroxysm which fortunately serves as a protection both to 
ourselves and others. This seasonable arrest of our functions 
gives us time to sanify, and we are allowed to recover them, 
when their exercise is no longer dangerous. Protective 
nature makes us sometimes blind and weak, when highly 



24 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

excited, for the same reason that the fleet greyhound has no 
sense of smell, and the quick-scented bloodhound no swift- 
ness of foot. 

Queen Elizabeth discovered qualities in anger which may 
not be obvious to common observers. " What does a man 
think of when he thinks of nothing?" her Majesty demanded 
of a choleric courtier, to whom she had not realised her 
promise of promotion. " He thinks, madam, of a woman's 
promise," was the tart reply. " Well, I must not confute 
him," said the Queen, walking away, " anger makes men 
witty, but it keeps them poor." 

ANGLER — a fish-butcher — a piscatory assassin — a Jack 
Ketch— catcher of jack, an impaler of live worms, frogs, and 
flies, a torturer of trout, a killer of carp, and a great gudgeon 
who sacrifices the best part of his life in taking away the life 
of a little gudgeon. Every thing appertaining to the angler's 
art, is cowardly, cruel, treacherous, and cat-like. He is a 
professional dealer in " treasons, stratagems, and plots ; " 
more subtle and sneaking than a poacher, and more exclu- 
sively devoted to snares, traps, and subterfuges ; he is at the 
same time infinitely more remorseless, finding amusement 
and delight in prolonging, to the last gasp, the agonies of the 
impaled bait, and of the wretched fish writhing with a barb 
in its entrails. 

The high priest of the anglers is that demure destroyer, 
old Izaak Walton, who may be literally termed the Hooker 
of their piscatory polity. Because he could write a line as 
well as throw one, they would persuade themselves that he 
has shed a sort of classical dignity on their art, and even 
associated it with piety and poetry, — what profanation ! The 
poet is not only a lover of his species, but of all sentient 
beings, because he "looks through nature up to Nature's 
God." But how can an angler be pious ? How can a tor- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 25 

mentor of the creature be a lover of the Creator ? Away 
with such cant ! Old Izaak must either have been a demure 
hypocrite, or a blockhead, unaware of the gross inconsistency 
between his profession and his practice. If he saw a fine 
trout, and wished to trouble him with a line, just to say he 
should be very happy to see him to dinner, he must first tor- 
ture his postman, the bait, and make him carry the letters of 
Bellerophon. Hark how tenderly the gentle ruffian gives 
directions for baiting with a frog : " Put your hook through 
the mouth, and out at his gills, and then with a fine needle 
and silk, sew the upper part of his leg, with only one stitch, 
to the arming wire of the hook, and in so doing, use him as 
though yoic loved him." 

Tender hearted Izaak ! — What would be his treatment of 
animals whom he did not love ? 

An angler may be meditative, or rather musing, but let 
him not ever think that he thinks, for if he had the healthy 
power of reflection, he could not be an angler. If sensible 
and amiable men are still to be seen squatted for hours in a 
punt, " like patience on a monument, smiling at grief," they 
are as much out of their element as the fish in their basket, 
and could only be reconciled to their employment by a reso- 
lute blinking of the question. In one of the admirable papers 
of the " Indicator," Leigh Hunt says — " We really cannot see 
what equanimity there is in jerking a lacerated carp out of 
the water by the jaws, merely because it has not the power of 
making a noise ; for we presume, that the most philosophic 
of anglers would hardly delight in catching shrieking fish." 
This is not so clear. Old Izaak, their patriarch, would have 
probably maintained that the shriek was a cry of pleasure. 
We willingly leave the anglers to their rod, for they deserve 
it, and we allow them to defend one another, not only 
because they have no other advocates, but because we are 
sure that the rest of the community would be glad to see 



26 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

them hang together, especially if they should make use of 
their own lines. 

Averse as we are from extending the sphere of the angler's 
cruelty, we will mention one fish which old Izaak himself 
had never caught. A wealthy tradesman having ordered a 
fish-pond at his country-house to be cleared out, the foreman 
discovered, at the bottom, a spring of ferruginous coloured 
water ; and, on returning to the house, told his employer that 
they had found a chalybeate. " I am glad of it," exclaimed 
the worthy citizen, "for I never saw one. Put it in the basket 
with the other fish, and I'll come and look at it presently." 

ANNUALS, Illustrated— the second childhood of Litera- 
ture, the patrons of which carefully look over the plates, and 
studiously overlook the letter-press. Its object is to sub- 
stitute the visible for the imaginative, a sensual for an intel- 
lectual pleasure, and to teach us to read engravings instead 
of writings. 

ANSWERS — to the point are more satisfactory to the 
interrogator, but answers from the point may be sometimes 
more entertaining to the auditor. " Were you born in 
wedlock?" asked a counsel of a witness. "No, Sir, in 
Devonshire," was the reply. — " Young woman," said a 
magistrate to a girl who was about to be sworn, " why do 
you hold the book upside down?" — "I am obliged, Sir, 
because I am left-handed." — See Josephus Molitor. A 
written non sequitur, not less amusing, was involved in the 
postscript of the man who hoped his correspondent would 
excuse faults of spelling, if any, as he had no knife to mend 
his pens. 

ANTINOMIANS— an antithesis to the Society for the 
Suppression of Vice. If we did not know that the best 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 27 

things perverted become the worst, we might wonder that 
the Christian religion should have ever generated a sect, 
whose doctrines are professedly anti-moral. Many, how- 
ever, are still to be found, who, maintaining that the moral 
law is nothing to man, and that he is not bound to obey 
it, avow an open contempt for good works, and affirm, that 
as God sees no sin in believers, they are neither obliged 
to confess it, nor to pray for its forgiveness. In this most 
perilous spirit many tracts have been published, 

" Which, in the semblance of devotion, 

Allure their victim to offence, 
And then administer a potion, 

To soothe and lull his conscience ; 
Teaching him that to break all ties, 
May be a wholesome sacrifice ; — 
That saints, like bowls, may go astray, 
Better to win the proper way ; 
Indulge in every sin at times, 

To prove that grace is never lacking ; 
And purify themselves by crimes, 

As dirty shoes are clean'd by blacking." 

ANTIPATHY. — As most men imagine themselves to have 
an abundance of good reasons for dislike of their fellow- 
creatures, they should be careful not to indulge imaginary 
ones. And yet some people, forgetting the precept of " Fas 
est et ab hoste docert" have such a blind antipathy against 
a political opponent, that they will disclaim any opinion 
which he adopts, and adopt those that he disclaims, which, 
as Bacon pithily observes, " is to make another man's folly 
the master of your wisdom." Bentham, in his Book of 
Fallacies, has ably pointed out the absurdity of this indis- 
criminate oppugnancy. — " Allow this argument the effect of 
a conclusive one, you put it into the power of any man to 
draw you at pleasure from the support of every measure 



28 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

which, in your own eyes, is good ; to force you to give your 
support to any and every measure which, in your own eyes, 
is bad. Is it good ? — the bad man embraces it, and, by the 
supposition, you reject it. Is it bad ? — he vituperates it, and 
that suffices for driving you into its embrace. You split 
upon the rocks, because he has avoided them ; you miss the 
harbour, because he has steered into it ! Give yourself up 
to any such blind antipathy, you are no less in the power of 
your adversaries than if, by a correspondently irrational 
sympathy and obsequiousness, you put yourself into the 
power of your friends." — pp. 132, 133. 

ANTIQUARY— too often a collector of valuables that 
are worth nothing, and a recollector of all that Time has 
been glad to forget. His choice specimens have become 
rarities, simply because they were never worth preserving ; 
and he attaches present importance to them in exact pro- 
portion to their former insignificance. A worthy of this 
unworthy class was once edifying the French Academy with 
a most unmerciful detail of the comparative prices of com- 
modities at various remote periods, when La Fontaine 
observed, " Our friend knows the value of everything, — 
except time." We recommend this anecdote to the special 
consideration of ci-devant members of the Roxburgh Club, 
as well as to the resuscitators of the dead lumber of 
antiquity. 

ANTIQUITY — the stalking horse on which knaves and 
bigots invariably mount, when they want to ride over the 
timid and the credulous. Never do we hear so much solemn 
palaver about the time-hallowed institutions, and approved 
wisdom of our ancestors, as when attempts are made to 
remove some staring monument of their folly. Thus is the 
youth, nonage, ignorance, and inexperience of the world 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 29 

invested by a strange blunder, which Bacon was the first to 
indicate, with the reverence due to the present times, which 
are its true old age. 

Antiquity is the young miscreant, the type of commingled 
ignorance and tyranny, who massacred prisoners taken in 
war, sacrificed human beings to idols, burnt them in 
Smithfield as heretics or witches, believed in astrology, 
demonology, sorcery, the philosopher's stone, and every 
exploded folly and enormity ; although his example is still 
gravely urged as a rule of conduct, and a standing argument 
against innovation, — that is to say, improvement ! If the seal 
of time were to be the signet of truth, there is no absurdity, 
oppression, or falsehood, that might not be received as 
gospel ; while the Gospel itself would want the more ancient 
warrant of Paganism. Never was the world so old, and 
consequently so wise, as it is to-day ; but it will be older, and 
therefore, still wiser, to-morrow. 

In one generation, the most ancient individual has 
generally the most experience ; but in a succession of 
generations, the youngest, or last of them, is the real Methu- 
selah and Mentor. To this obvious distinction, nothing can 
blind us but gross stupidity, or the most miserable cant. To 
plead the authority of the ancients, is to appeal from civilized 
and enlightened Christians, to fierce, unlettered Pagans ; for 
no one has decided where this boasted wisdom begins or 
ends, though all agree that it is of great age. Every elderly 
man is an ancestor to his former self. Let him compare his 
boyish notions and feelings with his matured judgment, and 
he will form a pretty correct notion of the wisdom of our 
ancestors ; for what the child is to the man, are the past 
generations to the present. 

Let us learn to distinguish the uses from the abuses of 
antiquity. Not to know what happened before we were 
born, is always to remain a child : to know, and blindly to 



3 o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

adopt that knowledge, as an implicit rule of life, is never to 
be a man. 

APOLOGY — as great a peacemaker as the word " if." 
In all cases, it is an excuse rather than an exculpation, and 
if adroitly managed, may be made to confirm what it seems 
to recall, and to aggravate the offence which it pretends to 
extenuate. A man who had accused his neighbour of false- 
hood, was called on for an apology, which he gave in the 
following amphibological terms : — " I called you a liar, — it is 
true. You spoke truth : I have told a lie." 

APPEARANCES, Keeping up — a moral, or, rather, 
immoral uttering of counterfeit coin. It is astonishing how 
much human bad money is current in society, bearing the 
fair impress of ladies and gentlemen. The former, if carefully 
weighed, will always be found light, or you may presently 
detect if you ring them, though this is a somewhat perilous 
experiment. Both may be known by their assuming a more 
gaudy and showy appearance than their neighbours, as if 
their characters were brighter, their impressions more per- 
fect, and their composition more pure, than all others. 

APPETITE — a relish bestowed upon the poorer classes, 
that they may like what they eat, while it is seldom enjoyed 
by the rich, because they may eat what they like. 

ARCHITECTURE. — Nothing more completely esta- 
blishes the absence of any standard of intrinsic or inherent 
beauty in architecture, than the fact that 1 we may equally 
admire two styles so totally dissimilar, both in their outlines, 
proportions, and details, as the Grecian and the Gothic, — an 
apparent inconsistency which has been accounted for by the 
plastic power of association. Independently of our impressions 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 



3i 



of the convenience, stability, skill, magnificence, and antiquity 
connected with the classical structures, they appeal more 
especially to our imagination, as the handiworks and 
records of those great nations, for which, even from our 
boyish days, we have ever felt the deepest reverence. And 
association can find the identical elements of beauty, dis- 
similar as they may seem, in the Gothic architecture, where 
a sense of religious veneration, and all the romantic recol- 
lections of chivalry, produce the same hallowing and 
ennobling effect as our classical impressions in the former 
instance. Alison has further observed, too, that a taste in 
architecture, when once established, is generally permanent, 
because the costliness of public edifices, as well as their great 
durability, prevent their renewal, until they have acquired, in 
the eyes of succeeding generations, all the sanction of anti- 
quity, and have rooted themselves in the public mind. This 
accounts for the long-continued uniformity of style among 
the ancient Egyptians, and other people of the East, as well 
as for our own habitual imitation of ancient standards. 

Why we should continue to enslave ourselves to the five 
orders of Vitruvius, I cannot well see. To the art of the 
statuary there is a conceivable limit, but that of the architect 
seems to admit a much wider range, and greater variety, 
than can be circumscribed within five orders. All structures 
should be adapted to the climate, and there is, therefore, 
ftrimd facie evidence that the fitting style for Greece and 
Asia Minor can scarcely be the proper one for England. A 
Grecian temple, many of whose ornaments are heathen 
symbols, is not the best model for a Christian church, which 
is but a solecism in stone when thus paganized ; nor can I 
admit the wisdom of our imitating an Italian villa, with its 
open balconies, and shady colonnades, unless we could, at 
the same time, import the Italian climate. The five orders 
are, to architecture, what the thirty-nine articles are to the 



3 a THE TIN TRUMPET; 

church, — they do not ensure uniformity ; — and if they did, it 
would not be desirable, because they are not adapted to the 
present state of knowledge, and the wants and feelings of 
the community. In either instance, this slavery of opinion 
must eventually yield to the growing freedom of thought. 

Is there any valid reason why the Doric capital should be 
peculiar to a pillar whose height is precisely eight diameters, 
the Ionic volute to one of nine, and the Corinthian foliage to 
one of ten? Custom has assigned these ornaments and 
proportions, but one can imagine others which would be 
equally, or, perhaps, more agreeable to an unprejudiced eye. 
The first columns were undoubtedly trees, which diminished 
as they ascended. The stems of the branches, where they 
were cut off, suggested the capital ; the iron or other ban- 
dages at top and bottom, to prevent the splitting of the wood, 
were the origin of the fillets ; the square tile which protected 
the lower end from the wet, gave rise to the plinth. But 
why should a stone pillar be made to imitate a tree, by 
lessening as it rises ? Custom alone has reconciled us to an 
unmeaning deviation, which throws all the inter-columnar 
spaces out of the perpendicular, and presents us with a series 
of long inverted cones, the most ungraceful of all forms. As 
if sensible of this defect, the Egyptians made the outline of 
some of their temples conform to the diminution of the 
columns, rendering the whole structure slightly pyramidical, 
and thus preserving the consistency of its lines. 

Observing some singular pilasters at Harrogate, sur- 
mounted with the Cornua Ammonis, I ventured to ask the 
builder to what order they belonged. " Why, Sir," he replied, 
putting his hand to his head, " the horns are a little order of 
my own." Knowing him to be a .married man, I concluded 
he had good reason for appropriating that peculiar ornament 
to himself, and made no further objections to his archi- 
tecture. 



: 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 33 

The bow windows and balconies that scallop the narrow 
side streets at our watering-places, in order that their occu- 
pants may have a better opportunity of seeing nothing, are 
excrescences which ought to be cut away. I admit, however, 
the disinterestedness of the architect ; he can have no view 
in them. 

ARGUMENT — with fools, passion, vociferation, or 
violence : with ministers, a majority: with kings, the sword: 
with fanatics, denunciation : with men of sense, a sound 
reason. 

ARISTOCRACY.— In ancient Greece this word signified 
the government of the best ; but in modern England, if we 
are to judge by the present majority of the House of Lords, 
the term seems to have fairly " turned its back upon itself," 
and to have become the antithesis to its original import ; 
even as beldam (or belle dame), formerly expressive of female 
beauty, is now defined by Dr. Johnson as, " a term of con- 
tempt, marking the last degree of old age with all its faults 
and miseries." 

If we have noblemen whose titles are their honour, we 
have others who are an honour to their titles. Happy he, 
who deriving his patent from nature, as well as from his 
sovereign, may be dubbed, " inter doctos nobilismnus, — inter 
nobiles doctissimus, — inter utrosque ofttimus" 

ARITHMETIC. — The science of figures cuts but a poor 
figure in its origin, the term calculation being derived from 
the calculus or pebble used as a counter by the Romans, 
whose numerals, stolen from the ancient Etruscans, and still 
to be traced on the monuments of that people, seem to have 
been suggested in the first instance by the five fingers. In- 
deed, the term digit or finger, applied to any single number, 

D 



34 THE TIN TRUMPET- 

sufficiently indicates the primitive mode of counting. The 
Roman V is a rude outline of the five fingers, or of the out- 
spread hand, narrowing to the wrist ; while the X is a symbol 
of the two fives or two hands crossed. In all probability the 
earliest numerals did not exceed five, which was repeated, 
with additions, for the higher numbers; and it is a remark- 
able coincidence that to express six, seven, eight, the North 
American Indians repeat the five, with the addition of one, 
two, three, on the same plan as the Roman VI, VII, VIII. 
Our term eleven is derived from the word ein or one, and the 
old verb liben, to leave ; so that it signifies one, leave ten. 
Twelve means two, after reckoning or laying aside ten ; and 
our termination of ty, in the words twenty, thirty, &c, comes 
from the Anglo-Saxon teg, to draw ; so that twenty, or 
twainty, signifies two drawings, or that the fingers have been 
twice counted over, and the hands twice closed. 

From the hands also, or other parts of the human body, 
were derived the original rude measurements. The uncia, or 
inch, was the first joint of the thumb, which being repeated 
three times, gave the breadth of the hand ; and this product, 
quadrupled, furnished the measure of the foot. The passus, or 
pace, was the interval between two steps, reckoned at six 
feet ; and a mile, as the word imports, consisted of a thou- 
sand paces. Other portions of the human body furnished 
secondary measures ; the width of the hand gave the palm, 
reckoned at three inches : — the distances of the elbow from 
the tips of the fingers, the cubit ; the entire length of the 
arm, the yard; — and the extreme breadth of the extended 
arms, across the shoulders, the fathom or six feet. 

The Arabic numerals, derived, in all probability, from the 
Persians, and brought into Europe by the Moors, were a 
great improvement upon the clumsy system of the Romans ; 
but it is to be regretted that we have not adopted the duo- 
decimal in preference to the decimal scale, as it mounts 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 35 

faster, and being more often divisible in the descending 
series, would express fractions with a greater simplicity. 

ART — Man's nature. Of all cants defend me from that 
cant of Art which substitutes a blind and indiscriminate 
reverence of the painter, provided he be dead, for a judicious 
admiration of his paintings. Our connoisseurs reverse the 
old adage, and prefer a dead dog to a living lion. They are 
Antinomian in their critical creed ; they substitute faith for 
good works, and will fall prostrate before any daub provided 
it be sanctified by a popular name. 

It may be objected that no artist would have acquired a 
great name unless he had been a great painter ; a position to 
which there are exceptions, although we will grant it for the 
sake of argument. But an artist who might command uni- 
versal admiration in the olden times, is no necessary model 
for the present. Surely our portrait painters need not study- 
Holbein. Many of the old masters, avowedly deficient in 
drawing and composition, were celebrated for their colouring, 
a merit which the mere effects of time, in the course of three 
or four centuries, must inevitably destroy : and yet Titian, 
the great colourist of his day, but whose pictures have mostly 
faded into a cold dimness, is still held up to admiration, be- 
cause his bright and blended hues delighted the good folks 
of the fifteenth century. The pictures of Rubens preserve 
the richness of their broad tints, which we can admire with- 
out being blind to the vulgarity of his taste and his bad 
drawing, for his females are little better than so many Dutch 
Vrowes — coarse, flabby and clownish. To a genuine con- 
noisseur, however, every one of them is, doubtless, a Venus 
de Medici ; not because she is handsome or well-pro- 
portioned, for she is neither, but because she is painted by 
Rubens. 

This idolatry of the artist and indifference to art, has had 

d 2 



36 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

a very mischievous effect in England ; first, by withdrawing 
encouragement from our countrymen and contemporaries, 
and, secondly, by injuring their taste in holding up as models 
for imitation, not the paintings of nature, but old Continental 
pictures, which, even supposing them to be genuine, have 
often lost the sole distinction that once conferred a value 
upon them. But in many instances they are spurious, for 
the high prices which we so absurdly lavish upon them, have 
called into existence, in the chief Italian towns, manufactories 
of copies and counterfeits for the sole supply of England, in 
which happy and discerning country may be found ten times 
more pictures of each of the old masters, than could have 
been painted in a long life. Neither the most experienced 
artist, nor knowing virtuoso, can guard against this species 
of imposition. It is well known that Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
even in that branch of the art with which he was most con- 
versant, was perpetually deceived, his collection swarming 
with false Correggios, Titians, and Michael Angelos. What 
wonder, then, that an old picture, as often happens, shall sell 
to-day for a thousand pounds, and that to-morrow, stripped 
of its supposed authenticity, stat nominis umbra, and shall 
not fetch ten ? And yet it is as good and as bad one day as 
it was the other, viewed as a work of art. So besotting is the 
magic of a name. 

To these pseudo-connoisseurs, who bring their own narrow 
professional feelings to the appreciation of a work of art, we 
recommend the following authentic anecdote : — A thriving 
tailor, anxious to transmit his features to posterity, inquired 
of a young artist what were his terms for a half length. " I 
charge twenty-five guineas for a head," was the reply. The 
portrait was painted and approved, when the knight of the 
thimble, taking out his purse, demanded how much he was to 
pay. " I told you before that my charge for a head was 
twenty-five guineas." — " I am aware of that," said Snip ; 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 37 

" but how much more for the coat ? — it is the best part of the 
picture." 

ART, Origin of. — We are struck with an admiration almost 
amounting to awe, when we contemplate a noble building, a 
fine statue, or a grand painting, and feel a pride in our spe- 
cies when we term them the noblest productions of human 
art ; but such objects have a still more sanctifying effect if 
we suffer them to raise our thoughts to Him who made the 
artist, and benevolently endowed him with faculties of which 
the exercise can bestow such pure delight, not only on his 
contemporaries, but on a long succession of generations. 
The races of spectators who have been gratified by the beau- 
tiful products of Grecian art, form, perhaps, but a tithe of 
those who are to succeed to the same pleasure, for cele- 
brated statues are almost immortal — they can only perish 
at least with the civilization that has enshrined them. 
The humblest work of nature, as well as the most perfect 
one of art, are alike exalted by tracing them to their divine 
original. 

ARTICLES, The Thirty-nine — spiritual canons, drawn 
up with the most subtle complication for the purpose of es- 
tablishing a general simplicity and unity in matters of faith. 
Of these Polyglot persuaders to the use of one religious 
language, there were originally forty-two, composed in the 
year 1552, "by the bishops and other learned and good men 
in Convocation, to root out the discord of opinions, and 
establish the agreement of true religion." But it appears 
that these infallible bishops and other learned and good men, 
who had undertaken to fix and determine the only right road 
to heaven, were themselves but blind guides, for, in the year 
1562, their Confession of Faith was altered and reduced to' 
thirty-nine articles. Alas ! this Convocation was no more 



5 3 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

infallible than its predecessor, for in 1571 these Articles 
were again revised and altered, since which time they have 
continued to be the criterion of the faith of the Church of 
England. They profess for their object—" the avoiding of 
diversities of opinions, and the establishing of consent touch- 
ing true religion," and their eminent success is attested by 
the fact that, if we include Ireland, Scotland, and the various 
dissenters, both from Episcopalianism and Presbyterianism, 
little more than one-third of the inhabitants of Great Britain 
are calculated to belong to the Established religion ; while, 
even of that third, owing to different interpretations of these 
articles, framed for producing universal consent, there are 
various sects opposed to one another within the walls of the 
Church, not less zealously than to the common enemy 
without ! 

Mark the opinion upon this subject entertained by a dis- 
tinguished prelate. " I reduced the study of divinity," says 
Bishop Watson, " into as narrow a compass as possible, for 
I determined to study nothing but my Bible, being much un- 
concerned about the opinions of councils, fathers, churches, 
bishops, and other men, as little inspired as myself. I had 
no prejudice against, no predilection for the Church of Engr 
land ; but a sincere regard for the Church of Christ, and an 
insuperable objection to every degree of dogmatical intoler- 
ance. I never troubled my self with answering any arguments 
which the opponents in the divinity-schools brought against 
the Articles of the Church, nor ever admitted their authority 
as decisive of a difficulty ; but I used, on such occasions, to 
say to them, holding the New Testament in my hand, l En 
sacrum codiceml 1 Here is the fountain of truth; why do 
you follow the streams derived from it by the sophistry, 
or polluted by the passions of man ? If you can bring 
any proofs against any thing delivered in this book, I 
shall think it my duty to reply to you. Articles of churches 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 39 

are not of divine authority; have done with them, for 
they may be true, they may be false, and appeal to the 
book itself." 

No Christian Church ought to exact from its ministers a 
Confession of Faith upon numerous and intricate articles of 
human construction, though it may fairly claim a declaration 
of belief that the Scriptures contain a revelation of the divine 
will. Such, at least, was the opinion of Bishop Watson, as 
it had been previously professed by the celebrated Bishop 
Hoadly, and other distinguished members of the Church of 
England. 

Xerxes, we are told, ordered the non-conforming waves of 
the ocean to be scourged with rods and confined within 
certain boundaries ; in imitation of which sapient example, 
our Church has provided a cat-o'-thirty-nine-tails, to lash 
back the tide of human thought and circumscribe the illimit- 
able range of opinion. In both instances the success has 
been worthy of the attempt. 

ASCETIC. — Dr. Johnson has observed that the shortness 
of life has afforded as many arguments to the voluptuary as 
to the moralist, and there can be no doubt that the ascetic, 
in his cell, is seeking his own happiness with as much 
selfishness as the professed epicurean : one betakes himself 
to immediate, the other to remote gratifications ; one devotes 
himself to sensuality, the other to mortification ; one to 
bodily, the other, perhaps, to intellectual pleasures ; one to 
this world, the other to the next ; but the principle of action 
is the same in both parties, and the ascetic is, perhaps, 
the most selfish calculator of the two, inasmuch as the 
reward he claims is infinitely greater and of longer endur- 
ance. He is usurious in his dealings with heaven, and does 
not put out the smallest mortification except upon the 
most enormous interest. His very self-denial is selfish, for 



40 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

the odds are incalculably in favour of the man who bets 
body against soul. 

They who impiously imagine that the happiness of the 
Creator consists in the unhappiness of the creature, are 
thus offending Him in their very fear of giving offence, 
since they find sweetness even in their sourness, and a joy 
in the very want of it. Well for them, too, if they go not 
astray, in their over anxiety to walk straight. " As for those 
that will not take lawful pleasures," says old Fuller, " I am 
afraid they will take unlawful pleasure, and, by lacing them- 
selves too hard, grow awry on one side." 

To the same purport we may quote the observation of 
the French writer, Balzac : " Si ceux qui sont ennemis des 
divertissemens honnetes avoient la direction du monde. Us 
voudroient 6ter le ftrintemps et la jeunesse, — Pun de Panne'e, 
et Vautre de la vie." 

ATHANASIAN CREED, Character of, by a bishop.— 
" A motley monster of bigotry and superstition, a scarecrow 
of shreds and patches, dressed up of old by philosophers 
and popes, to amuse the speculative and to affright the 
ignorant; now a butt of scorn, against which every un- 
fledged witling of the age essays his wanton efforts, and 
before he has learned his catechism, is fixed an infidel 
for life."* 

In Bishop Watson's proposed bill for revising the Liturgy 
and Articles, the omission of the Athanasian Creed was one 
of the principal improvements ; and, long before his time, 
Bishop Burnet had not scrupled to pronounce it a forgery 
of the eighth century. We know, from the authority of Dr. 
Heberden, that the pious George III. refused, in the most 
pointed manner, to make the responses when this creed was 

* Misc. Tracts, by Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, v. ii., p. 49. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 42 

read in Windsor Chapel. Dr. Mant, quoting from Dean 
Vincent, says, " this creed is supposed to have been framed 
from the writings of Athanasius. It was not, however, ad- 
mitted into the offices of the Roman church, at the earliest, 
till the year 930, in which it has continued ever since, and 
was received into our liturgy at the time of the Reforma- 
tion." — (Mant's Common Prayer, p. 57.) 

In spite of the damnatory clauses at the conclusion of 
this theological puzzle, this Ignotum per ignotius, it appears 
that Christendom did very well without it for 900 years ; 
and, probably, very few of the rationally devout would com- 
plain if it were placed in the same situation for 900 years 
to come. It was a saying of the Dutch General, Wurtz, 
" that when men shall have once taken out of Christianity 
all that they have foisted into it, there will be but one 
religion in the world, and that equally plain in doctrine, 
and pure in morals." The Scriptures warn us against 
" teaching the doctrines of men as the commandments of 
God ;" or, as Paley has said, " imposing, under the name of 
revealed religion, doctrines which men cannot believe, or 
will not examine." When objections are made to the Mosaic 
account of the creation, as being inconsistent with the 
modern state of science, it is indignantly urged that Moses 
did not undertake to expound astronomy or geology to 
ignorant shepherds, but that he spoke popularly, and 
adapted himself to the comprehensions of his auditors. 
And yet, when any attempt is made to popularize our 
liturgy, by the omission of any such objectionable portions 
as the Athanasian Creed, we hear a Pharisaical cry of 
impiety and profanation, and are solemnly warned that to 
remove a single stone, however cankered or superfluous, 
is to endanger the whole edifice of the church. Strange ! 
that we may suppress truth and yet not expunge a forgery. 
Strange ! that we may adapt the liturgy and formularies 



42 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

of religion to the ignorance of the age, and yet not adjust 
them to its knowledge ! 

This incredible creed, which it is above all things neces- 
sary to hold, may be defined, like Aristotle's Materia Prima, 
as, " nee quid, nee quale, nee quantum, nee aliquid eorum de 
quibits Ens denominatur? Nevertheless, there are golden 
reasons, which may induce a profession of belief in it. Mr. 
Patten, a curate of Whitstable, was so much averse to it 
that he always omitted it from the service. Archbishop 
Seeker, being informed of his recusancy, sent the arch- 
deacon to ask him his reason. " I do not believe it," said 
the priest. — " But your metropolitan does" replied the 
archdeacon. — " It may be so," rejoined Mr. Patten ; " and he 
can well afford it. He believes at the rate of seven thousand 
a-year, and I, only at that of fifty." 

ATHEIST. — Supposing such an anomaly to exist, an 
atheist must be the most miserable of beings. The idea 
of a fatherless world, swinging by some blind law of chance, 
which may every moment expose it to destruction, through 
• an infinite space, filled, perhaps, with nothing but suffering 
and wretchedness, unalleviated by the prospect of a future 
and a happier state, must be almost intolerable to a man 
who has a single spark of benevolence in his bosom. " All 
the splendour of the highest prosperity," says Adam Smith, 
" can never enlighten the gloom with which so dreadful an 
idea must necessarily overshadow the imagination ; nor in a 
wise and virtuous man, can all the sorrow of the most 
afflicting adversity ever dry up the joy which necessarily 
springs from the habitual and thorough conviction of the 
truth of the contrary system." 

The word atheist has done yeoman's service as a nick- 
name wherewith to pelt all those who disapprove of the 
thirty-nine articles, or who venture to surmise that there are 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 43 

abuses in the church which need reform ; but this sort of 
dirt has been thrown until it will no longer stick, except to 
the fingers of those who handle it. The real atheist is the 
Mammonite, who, making " godliness a great gain," wor- 
ships a golden calf, and calls it a God : or the miserable 
fanatic, who, endowing the phantom of his own folly and 
fear, with the worst passions of the worst men, dethrones the 
deity to set up a daemon, and curses all those who will not 
curse themselves by joining in his idolatry. 

AUDIENCE — a crowd of people in a large theatre, so 
called because they cannot hear. The actors speak to them 
with their hands and feet, and the spectators listen with 
their eyes. 

AUTHOR, Original — one who copying only from the 
works of the great Author of the world, never plagiarises, 
except from the book of nature; whereas the imitator de- 
rives his inspiration from the writings of his fellow-men, and 
has no thought except as to the best mode of purloining the 
thoughts of others. Authors are lamps, exhausting them- 
selves to give light to others ; or rather may they be com- 
pared to industrious bees, not because they are armed with 
a sting, but because they gather honey from every flower, 
only that their hive may be plundered when their toil is 
completed. By the iniquitous law of copyright, an author's 
property in the offspring of his own intellect, is wrested from 
him at the end of a few years ; previously to which period, 
the bookseller is generally obliging enough to ease him of 
the greater portion of the profit. 

Against the former injustice, however, most writers secure 
themselves by the evanescent nature of their works ; and as 
to the latter, we must confess after all, that the bookseller is 
the best Maecenas. 



44 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

For the flattery lavished upon a first successful work, an 
author often pays dearly by the abuse poured upon its suc- 
cessors ; for we all measure ourselves by our best produc- 
tion, and others by their worst. — Writers are too often 
treated by the public, as crimps serve recruits, — made drunk 
at first, only that they may be safely rattaned all the rest of 
their lives. 

An author is more annoyed by abuse than gratified by 
praise ; because, he looks upon the latter as a right and the 
former as a wrong. And this opens a wider question as to 
the constitution of our nature, both moral and physical, 
which is susceptible of pain in a much greater and more 
intense degree than of pleasure. We have no bodily 
enjoyment to counterbalance the agony of an acute tooth- 
ache ; nor any mental one that can form a set-off against 
despair. Nowhere is this more glaringly illustrated than 
in the descriptions of our future rewards and punishments, 
the miseries and the anguish of hell being abundantly de- 
finite and intelligible, while the heavenly beatitudes are 
dimly shadowed forth, as being beyond the imagination of 
man to conceive. 

An author's living purgatory, is his liability to be con- 
sulted as to the productions of literary amateurs, both male 
and female. The annoyance of reading them can only be 
equalled by that of pronouncing upon their merits. Oh, that 
every scribbler would recollect the dictum of Dr. Johnson 
upon this subject. "You must consider beforehand, that 
such effusions may be bad as well as good ; and nobody has 
a right to put another under such a difficulty, that he must 
either hurt the person by telling the truth, or hurt himself by 
telling what is not true." 

Between authors and artists there should be no jealousy, 
for their pursuits are congenial ; one paints with a pen, the 
other writes with a brush ; and yet it is difficult for either to 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 45 

be quite impartial, in weighing the merits of their different 
avocations. The author of the Pleasures of Hope, being at 
a dinner-party with Mr. Turner, R.A., whose enthusiasm for 
his art led him to speak of it and of its professors as superior 
to all others, the bard rose, and after alluding with a mock 
gravity, to his friend's skill in varnishing painters as well as 
paintings, proposed the health of Mr. Turner, and the 
worshipful company of Painters and Glaziers. This, (to 
use the newspaper phrase) called up Mr. Turner, who with 
a similar solemnity, expressed his sense of the honour he 
had received, made some good humoured allusions to blotters 
of foolscap, whose works are appropriately bound in calf; 
and concluded by proposing in return, the health of Mr. 
Campbell, and the worshipful company of Paper-stainers — a 
rejoinder that excited a general laugh, in which none joined 
more heartily than the poet himself. 

AUTHORITY, Submission to, in matters of opinion — 
making names the measure of facts, — deciding upon truth 
by extrinsic testimony, not intrinsic evidence — surrendering 
our reason, which is the revelation of God, to the reasons of 
men, not necessarily more competent to judge than ourselves. 
Better to be a slave with an unfettered mind, than a pseudo 
freeman whose opinions, his most precious birthright, are 
bondslaves to a name. Had authority always been our 
guide, we should still have been savages. " The woods," 
says Locke, " are fitter to give rules than cities, where those 
that call themselves civil and rational, go out of their way 
by the authority of example." Are we to follow every Will- 
o'-the-wisp because it is literally a precedent ? 

Although it condemns the same assumption in the Pope, 
our Church in its twentieth article, claims " power to decree 
rites or ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith." 
It has been affirmed that this article has neither the sanction 



4 6 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

of parliament nor convocation ; but if it possessed both, it 
would still want the authority of reason and justice, and 
the possibility of enforcing that which is quite beyond the 
reach of mortal jurisdiction. Christianity, its own best and 
surest authority, is only weakened by arbitrary enactments. 
To a calm inquirer, it must seem marvellous that any fallible 
man, or council of men, should set themselves up as directors 
of the consciences of others. 

Surely the time will come when even the stoutest sticklers 
for compulsory act of parliament faith, becoming convinced 
of their error, will join in the following prayer of the learned 
and pious Dr. Chandler — " 'Tis my hearty prayer to the 
Father of Lights, and the God of Truth, that all human 
authority in matters of faith, may come to a full end ; and 
that every one, who hath reason to direct him, and a soul 
to save, may be his own judge in every thing that concerns 
his eternal welfare, without any prevailing regard to the 
dictates of fallible men, or fear of their peevish and impotent 
censures." 

At present it is to be feared, there are many churchmen, 
reformed as well as Roman, who hold with Cardinal Perron, 
when he says, "We must not pretend to convince an Arian 
of his errors by scripture evidence — we must have recourse to 
the authority of the Church." That this was not the opinion 
of our English Bishop Hoadly, will appear from the follow- 
ing extract : — 

" Authority is the greatest and most irreconcilable enemy 
to truth and argument that this world ever furnished out. 
All the sophistry, all the colour of plausibility, all the argu- 
ment and cunning of the subtlest disputer in the world, 
may be laid open and turned to the advantage of that 
very truth, which they designed to hide or to depress : but 
against authority there is no defence. It was authority 
which would have prevented all reformation where it is ; 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. - 47 

and which has put a barrier against it wherever it is 
not." 

AUTO-BIOGRAPHY— drawing a portrait of yourself 
with a pen and ink, carefully omitting all the bad features 
that you have, and putting in all the good ones that you have 
not, so as to ensure an accurate and faithful likeness ! Pub- 
lishing your own authentic life is telling flattering lies of 
yourself, in order, if possible, to prevent others from telling 
disparaging truths. No man's life is complete till he is 
dead, an auto-biography is therefore a mis-nomer. As such 
works, however, generally fall still-born from the press, an 
author may fairly be said to have lost his life, as soon as he 
is delivered of it, so that this objection is, in fact, removed. 

AUTO DA FE, or act of faith — roasting our fellow 
creatures alive, for the honour and glory of a God of mercy. 
The horrors of this diabolical spectacle, which was invari- 
ably beheld by both sexes and all ages with transports of 
triumph and delight, should eternally be borne in mind, that 
we may see to what brutal extremities intolerance will push 
us, if it be not checked in the very outset. Thanks to the 
progress of opinion, the inquisition » and its tortures are 
abolished ; but fanatics, whether Romish or Reformed, still 
reserve the right of punishing Heretics, (that is, all those 
who differ from themselves on religious points,) with fire, 
pillory, imprisonment, and odium in this world ; while they 
carefully retain the parting curse of the inquisition, " Jam 
animam tuam tradimus Diabolo? and consign them to 
eternal fire in the next. This moral inquisition remains yet 
to be suppressed. It is only a postponed auto da fe. And 
all this hateful irreligion for the sake of religion ! How truly 
may Christianity exclaim — " I fear not mine enemies, but 
save, oh ! save me from my pretended friends." 



48 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

AVARICE — the mistake of the old, who begin multi- 
plying their attachments to the earth, just as they are going 
to run away from it, thereby increasing the bitterness with- 
out protracting the date of their separation. What the world 
terms avarice, however, is sometimes no more than a com- 
pulsory economy ; and even a wilful penuriousness is better 
than a wasteful extravagance. Simonides being reproached 
with parsimony, said he had rather enrich his enemies after 
his death, than borrow of his friends in his lifetime. 

There are more excuses for this "old gentlemanly vice," 
than the world is willing to admit. Its professors have the 
honour of agreeing with Vespasian, that — " Auri bonus est 
odor ex re qualibet? and with Dr. Johnson, who maintained, 
that a man is seldom more beneficially employed, either for 
himself or others, than when he is making money. Wealth, too, 
is power, of which the secret sense in ourselves, and the open 
homage it draws from others, are doubly sweet, when we feel 
that all our other powers, and the estimation they procured 
us, are gradually failing. Nor is it any trifling advantage, in 
extreme old age, still to have a pursuit that gives an interest 
to existence ; still to propose to ourselves an object, of which 
every passing day advances the accomplishment, and which 
holds out to us the pleasure of success, with hardly a pos- 
sibility of failure, for it is much more easy to make the last 
plum than the first thousand. So far from supposing an old 
miser to be inevitably miserable, in the Latin sense of the 
word, it is not improbable that he may be more happy than 
his less penurious brethren. No one but an old man who 
has withstood the temptation of avarice, should be allowed 
to pronounce its unqualified condemnation. 




OR, HEADS AND TALES. 49 



ACHE LOR — one who is so fearful of marrying, 
lest his wife should become his mistress, that he 
not unfrequently finishes his career by convert- 
ing his mistress into a wife. " A married man," 
said Dr. Johnson, " has many cares ; but a 
bachelor has no pleasures." Cutting himself off from a great 
blessing, for fear of some trifling annoyance, he has rivalled 
the wiseacre who secured himself against corns, by ampu- 
tating his leg. In his selfish anxiety to live unencumbered, he 
has only subjected himself to a heavier burthen ; for the pas- 
sions, who apportion to every individual the load that he is 
to bear through life, generally say to the calculating bachelor 
— " As you are a single man, you shall carry double." 

We may admire the wit, without acknowledging the truth 
of the repartee uttered by a bachelor, who, when his friend 
reproached him for his celibacy, adding that bachelorship 
ought to be taxed by the Government, replied, " There I 
agree with you, for it is quite a luxury ! " 

BAIT — one animal impaled upon a hook, in order to 
torture a second, for the amusement of a third. Were the 
latter to change places, for a single day, with either of the 
two former, which might generally be done with very little 
loss to society, it would enable him to form a better notion 
of the pastime he is in the habit of pursuing. — N.B. To 
make some approximation towards strict retributive justice, 
he should gorge the bait, and his tormentor should have all 
the humanity of an experienced angler ! 

BALLADS — vocal portraits of the national mind. The 
people that are without them, may literally be said not to be 
worth an old song. The old Government of France was well 

E 



5 o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

defined as an absolute monarchy, moderated by songs ; and 
the acute Fletcher of Saltoun was so sensible of their im- 
portance, as to express a deliberate opinion, that if a man 
were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who 
made the laws of a nation. They who deem this an ex- 
aggerated notion, will do well to recollect the silly ballad 
of Lilliburlero, the noble author of which publicly boasted, 
and without much extravagance in the vaunt, that he had 
rhymed King James out of his dominions. 

BALLOT — an equal security against aristocratical cor- 
ruption, and democratical intimidation : the only security 
for the free and impartial exercise of the elective franchise, 
to extend which to the poor and dependent, without the 
protection of secrecy, is only to throw the representation 
more completely into the hands of the rich and powerful. 
Sad rogues must be the lower classes, as we are told, thus 
to be bought or browbeaten. No doubt : and their superiors, 
who bribe and intimidate them, are all marvellous proper 
gentlemen ! Against a proposition for the ballot, the esta- 
blished arguments are, a shrug of the shoulders, a look of 
disgust, and an exclamation of horror ; — conclusive modes 
of reasoning, adopted rather from necessity than choice, for 
we are not aware of any more convincing objections. Some, 
indeed, are so consistent as to tell us, that the practice is 
mean, degrading, contemptible, un-English, at the very time 
that it is openly practised in the Committee business of the 
House of Commons, in the elections at the East India 
House, and in those of almost every club throughout the 
kingdom. Though such noodles have short memories, they 
cannot be called great wits. 

BANDIT — an unlegalised soldier, who is hanged for 
doing that which would get him a commission and a medal, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 51 

had he taken the king's money, instead of that of travellers. 
" Ille crucem sceleris ftretiu7n tulit, hie diademaP 

BAR, Independence of the. — Like a ghost, a thing much 
talked of, and seldom seem. If a barrister possess any pro- 
fessional or moral independence, it cannot be worth much, 
for a few guineas will generally purchase it. It must be con- 
fessed, that he is singularly independent of all those scruples 
which operate upon the consciences of other men. Right 
and wrong, truth or falsehood, morality or profligacy, are all 
equally indifferent to him. Dealing in law, not justice, his 
brief is his bible, the ten guineas of his retaining fee are his 
decalogue : his glory, like that of a cookmaid, consists in 
wearing a silk gown, and his heaven is in a judge's wig. 
Head, heart, conscience, body and soul, all are for sale : the 
forensic bravo stands to be hired by the highest bidder, 
ready to attack those whom he has just defended, or defend 
those whom he has just attacked, according to the orders he 
may receive from his temporary master. Looking to the 
favour of the judge for favour with their clients, and to the 
government for professional promotion, barristers have too 
often been the abject lickspittles of the one, and the supple 
tools of the other. 

M. de la B , a French gentleman, seems to have 

formed a very correct notion of the independence of the bar. 
Having invited several friends to dine on a maigre day, his 
servant brought him word, that there was only a single 
salmon left in the market, which he had not dared to bring 
away, because it had been bespoken by a barrister. — " Here," 
said his master, putting two or three pieces of gold into his 
hand, " Go back directly, and buy me the barrister and the 
salmon too." 

BARRISTER — a legal servant of all work: one who 

e 2 



52 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

sometimes makes his gown a cloak for browbeating and 
putting down a witness, who, but for this protection, might 
occasionally knock down the barrister. Show me the con- 
scientious counsellor, who, refusing to hire out his talents 
that he may screen the guilty, overreach the innocent, 
defraud the orphan, or impoverish the widow, will scrupu- 
lously decline a brief, unless the cause of his client wear at 
least a semblance of honesty and justice ; — who will leave 
knaves and robbers to the merited inflictions of the law, 
while he will cheerfully exert his eloquence and skill in 
redressing the wrongs of the injured. Show me such a 
Phcenix of a barrister, and I will admit that he richly 
deserves — not to have been at the bar ! 

" Does not a barrister's affected warmth, and habitual dis- 
simulation, impair his honesty?" asked Boswell of Dr. John- 
son. — " Is there not some danger that he may put on the 
same mask in common life, in the intercourse with his 
friends?" — "Why no, Sir," replied the Doctor. "A man 
will no more carry the artifice of the bar into the common 
intercourse of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling 
upon his hands will continue to do so when he should walk 
on his feet." Perhaps not ; but how are we to respect the 
forensic tumbler, who will walk upon his hands, and perform 
the most ignoble antics for a paltry fee ? 

All briefless barristers will please to consider themselves 
excepted from the previous censure, for I should be really 
sorry to speak ill of any man without a cause. 

BATHOS — sinking when you mean to rise. The waxen 
wings of Icarus, which, instead of making him master of the 
air, plunged him into the water, were a practical Bathos. So 
was the miserable imitation of the Thunderer by Salmoneus, 
which, instead of giving him a place among the Gods, con- 
signed him to the regions below. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 53 

Of the wiitten Bathos, an amusing instance is afforded in 
the published tour of a lady, who has attained some celebrity 
in literature. Describing a storm to which she was exposed, 
when crossing in the steam-boat from Dover to Calais, her 
ladyship says, — " In spite of the most earnest solicitations to 
the contrary, in which the captain eagerly joined, I firmly 
persisted in remaining upon deck, although the tempest had 
now increased to such a frightful hurricane, that it was not 
without great difficulty I could — hold up my parasol ! " 

As a worthy companion to this little morqeau, we copy the 
following affecting advertisement from a London newspaper : 

— " If this should meet the eye of Emma D , who absented 

herself last Wednesday from her father's house, she is im- 
plored to return, when she will be received with undiminished 
affection by her almost heart-broken parents. If nothing 
can persuade her to listen to their joint appeal— should she 
be determined to bring their grey hairs with sorrow to the 
grave — should she never mean to revisit a home where she 
has passed so many happy years — it is at least expected, if 
she be not totally lost to all sense of propriety, that she will, 
without a moment's further delay, — send back the key of the 
tea-caddy." 

BEAUTY — has been not unaptly, though somewhat 
vulgarly, defined by T. H. as " all my eye," since it addresses 
itself solely to that organ, and is intrinsically of little value. 
From this ephemeral flower are distilled many of the ingre- 
dients in matrimonial unhappiness. It must be a dangerous 
gift, both for its possessor and its admirer, if there be any 
truth in the assertion of M. Gombaud, that beauty " refire- 
sente les Dieux, et les fait oublier" If its possession, as is 
too often the case, turns the head, while its loss sours the 
temper ; if the long regret of its decay outweighs the fleeting 
pleasure of its bloom, the plain should rather pity than envy 



54 THE TIN TRUMPET j 

the handsome. Beauty of countenance, which, being the 
light of the soul shining through the face, is independent of 
features or complexion, is the most attractive, as well as the 
most enduring charm. Nothing but talent and amiability 
can bestow it, no statue or picture can rival, time itself can- 
not destroy it. 

Wants are seldom blessings, and yet the want of a common 
standard of beauty has incalculably widened the sphere of 
our enjoyment, since all tastes may thus be gratified by the 
infinite variety of minds, and the endless' diversities in the 
human form. Father Buffier maintains, that the beauty of 
every object consists in that form and colour most usual 
among things of that particular sort to which it belongs. 
He seems to have thought that there was no inherent beauty 
in anything except the juste milieu, the happy mean. " The 
beauty of a nose," says Adam Smith, following out the same 
idea in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, is the form at which 
Nature seems to have aimed in all noses, which she seldom 
hits exactly, but to which all her deviations still bear a 
strong resemblance. Many copies of an original may all 
miss it in some respects, yet they will all resemble it more 
than they resemble one another. So it is with animated 
forms ; and thus beauty, though, in one sense, exceedingly 
rare, because few attain the happy mean, is, at the same 
time, a common quality, because all the deviations have a 
greater resemblance to this standard than to one another. 

Even this, however, is not a certain criterion, for our esti- 
mate of beauty, depending mainly upon association, will be 
influenced by the predominant feeling in the mind of the 
spectator, whether he be contemplating a woman or a land- 
scape. Brindley, the civil engineer, considered a straight 
canal a much more picturesque and pleasing object than a 
meandering river. " For what purpose," he was asked, " do 
you apprehend rivers to have been intended ? " — " To feed 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 55 

navigable canals," was the reply. Dr. Johnson maintained, 
that there was no beauty without utility, but he was not pro- 
vided with a rejoinder, when the peacock's tail was objected 
to him. What so beautiful as flowers, and yet we cannot 
always perceive their utility in the economy of nature. There 
are belles, to whom the same remark may be applied. 

As the want of exterior generally increases the interior 
beauty, we should do well to judge of women as of the im- 
pressions on medals, and pronounce those the most valuable 
which are the plainest. 

BEER, Small — an undrinkable drink, which if it were 
set upon a cullender to let the water run out, would leave a 

residuum of- nothing. Of whatever else it may be guilty, 

it is generally innocent of malt and hops. Upon the prin- 
ciple of lucus a non lucendo, it may be termed liquid bread, 
and the strength of corn. Small-beer comes into the third 
category of the honest brewer, who divided his infusions into 
three classes — strong table, common table, and lamen-table. 
An illiterate vendor of this commodity wrote over his door at 
Harrogate, " Bear sold here ! " "He spells the word quite 
correctly," said T. H., " if he means to apprise us that the 
article is his own Bruin / " 

BELIEF — an involuntary operation of the mind, which 
we can no more control, however earnestly we may wish or 
pray for it, than we can add a cubit to our stature by desiring 
to be taller. " Belief or disbelief," says Dr. Whitby, " can 
neither be a virtue nor a crime in any one who uses the best 
means in his power of being informed. If a proposition is 
evident, we cannot avoid believing it, and where is the merit 
or piety of a necessary assent? If it is not evident, we 
cannot help rejecting it, or doubting of it ; and where is the 
crime of not performing impossibilities, or not believing what 



56 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

does not appear to us to be true ? " Throughout the world 
belief depends chiefly upon localities, and the accidents of 
birth. The doctrines instilled into our infant mind are, in 
almost every instance, retained as they were received — with- 
out inquiry ; and if such a passive acquiescence deserve the 
name of an intelligent belief, which may well be questioned, 
it is manifest that we ourselves have no merit in the process. 
And yet, gracious Heaven ! what wars, massacres, miseries 
and martyrdoms, to enforce that which it does not depend 
upon the human will, either to adopt or to repudiate ! 

Perhaps the world never made a more mischievous mis- 
take, than by elevating the meritoriousness and the rewards 
of belief, which is not in our power, above the claims of good 
works, which depend entirely upon ourselves ; a perversion 
operating as a premium upon hypocrisy, and a positive dis- 
couragement to virtue. Whatever desert there may be in 
mere belief, we share it with the devils, who are said, in the 
Epistle of James, " to believe and tremble ;" a tolerably con- 
clusive answer to those who maintain that good works are 
the inevitable result of faith. 

We will put a case to the sincere bigot. If fifty, or five 
hundred, or five thousand, of the most learned and clear- 
sighted men in the kingdom, were solemnly to warn him that 
his salvation or perdition depended on his believing the sky 
to be of a bright orange colour, what would be his reply, if 
he was an honest man ? " Gentlemen, most implicitly do I 
believe that, to your eyes, the sky is of a bright orange 
colour ; but, owing to some singularity or defect in the con- 
struction of my visual organs, a misfortune for which I ought 
to be pitied rather than hated and anathematized, it has 
always appeared to me of a mild blue colour; nor can I ever 
believe, such being the case, that a God of truth and justice, 
will reward me with eternal happiness for uttering a false- 
hood : or condemn me to endless torments for avowing that 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 57 

which I most conscientiously believe to be true." Let the 
bigot, upon questions as to the colour of faith, infinitely more 
difficult of proof than the hues of visible objects, grant the 
indulgence he is thus described as claiming; let him do as 
he would be done by, and he will soon lose the reproach of 
his name, while enlightened and philanthropic Christianity 
will gain a convert. But, alas ! it is so much easier to 
observe certain forms involving no self-denial, or to profess a 
belief, which may be simply an uninquiring assent, than to 
practise virtue, that the fanatics will always have numerous 
followers, who will hate the moralists even as the ancient 
Pharisees detested the Christians. 

Shaftesbury, in his " Characteristics," has thus defined the 
different forms of belief : — 

" To believe that everything is governed, or regulated for 
the best, by a designing Principle or Mind, necessarily good 
and permanent, is to be a perfect Theist." 

" To believe no 07ie supreme designing Principle or Mind, 
but rather two, three, or more, (though in their nature good) 
is to be a Polytheist." 

" To believe the governing mind or minds not absolutely 
and necessarily good, nor confined to what is best, but 
capable of acting according to mere will or fancy, is to be a 
Dsemonist !" 

God forbid ! that anything here set down, should be con- 
strued into an encouragement of unbelief, when its sole 
object is the discouragement of unchristian intolerance, by 
showing the real nature and value of faith. They who per- 
secute, or even hate their fellow creatures for opinion's-sake, 
want the power rather than the inclination to restore the 
inquisition, with all its diabolical cruelties. We are told, in 
the 7th Psalm, that " the Lord ordaineth his arrows against 
the persecutors." They who practise, therefore, not those 
who deprecate persecution, are the real unbelievers. Hacknied 



58 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

as is the quotation, we cannot, perhaps, better close this 
article than with Pope's couplet : — 

" For modes of faith let zealous bigots fight; 
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 

BENEFICENCE — may exist without benevolence. 
Arising from a sense of duty, not from sympathy or com- 
passion, it may be a charity of the hand rather than of the 
heart. And this, though less amiable, is, perhaps, more 
certain than the charity of impulse, inasmuch as a principle 
is better to be depended upon than a feeling. There is an 
apparent beneficence which has no connection, either with 
right principle or right feeling, as, when we throw alms to a 
beggar, not to relieve him of his distress, but ourselves of his 
importunity or of the pain of beholding him : and there is a 
charity which is mere selfishness, as when we bestow it for 
the sole purpose of ostentation. We need not be surprised 
that certain names should be so pertinaciously blazoned 
before the public eye in lists of contributors, if we bear in 
mind that " charity covereth a multitude of sins." 

BENTLEY, Doctor.— In the lately published life of this 
literary Thraso, the editor has omitted to insert an anecdote 
which is worth preserving, if it were only for the pun that it 
embalms. Robert Boyle, afterwards Earl of Cork, having, 
as it was generally thought, defeated Bentley in a controversy 
concerning the authenticity of the letters of Phalaris, the 
Doctor's pupils drew a caricature of their master, whom the 
guards of Phalaris were thrusting into his brazen bull, for 
the purpose of burning him alive, while a label issued from 
his mouth with the following inscription, " Well, well ! I had 
rather be roasted than Boyled." 

BIGOT. — Camden relates that when Rollo, Duke of Nor- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 59 

mandy, received Gisla, the daughter of Charles the Foolish, 
in marriage, he would not submit to kiss Charles's foot ; and 
when his friends urged him by all means to comply with 
that ceremony, he made answer in the English tongue — Ne 
SE BY God — i. e. — Not so by God. Upon which the king 
and his courtiers deriding him, and corruptly repeating his 
answer, called him bigot, which was the origin of the term. 
Though modern bigots resemble their founder in being 
wedded to the offspring of a foolish parent, viz. their own 
opinion, they are unlike him in every other particular; for 
they not only insist upon kissing the foot of some superior 
authority, the Pope of their own election, but they quarrel 
with all the world for not following their example. Generally 
obstinate in proportion as he is wrong, the bigot thinks he 
best shows his love of God by hatred of his fellow creatures, 
and his humility by lauding himself and his sect. Vain is 
the endeavour to argue with men of this stamp — 

For, steel'd by pride from all assaults, 
They cling the closer to their faults ; 
And make self-praise supply an ointment 
For every wound and disappointment, 
As dogs by their own licking cure 
Whatever soreness they endure. 
Minds thus debased by mystic lore, 

Are like the pupils of the eye, 
Which still contract themselves the more, 

The greater light that you supply. 
Others by them are prais'd or slander'd, 
Exactly as they fit their standard, 
And as an oar, though straight in air, 

Appears in water to be bent, 
So men and measures, foul or fair, 

View'd through the bigot's element, 
(Such are the optics of their mind,) 
They crooked or straightforward find. 

But, ought we not to treat even the most intolerant with 



60 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

forbearance? On this subject, hear what Goethe says, when 
writing of Voss the German Poet. — " If others will rob the 
poet of this feeling of universal, holy complacency ; if they 
will set up a peculiar doctrine, an exclusive interpretation, a 
contracted and contracting principle, — then is his mind 
moved, even to passion; then does the peaceful man rise 
up, grasp his weapon, and go forth against errors which he 
thinks so fearfully pernicious ; against credulity and super- 
stition ; against phantoms arising out of the obscure depths 
of nature and of the human mind ; against reason-obscuring, 
intellect-contracting dogmas ; against decrees and anathemas ; 
against proclaimers of heresy, priests of Baal, hierarchies, 
clerical hosts, and against their great common progenitor, 
the devil himself." 

" Ought we to accede to the apparently fair, but radically 
false and unfair maxim, which, impudently enough, declares 
that true toleration must be tolerant, even towards in- 
tolerance? By no means; intolerance is ever active and 
stirring, and can only be maintained by intolerant deeds 
and practices." 

BIRTH, Low — an incitement to high deeds, and the 
attainment of lofty station. Many of our greatest men have 
sprung from the humblest origin, as the lark, whose nest is 
on the ground, soars the nearest to heaven. Narrow circum- 
stances are the most powerful stimulant to mental expansion, 
and the early frowns of fortune the best security for her final 
smiles. A nobleman who painted remarkably well for an 
amateur, showing one of his pictures to Poussin, the latter 
exclaimed — " Your lordship only requires a little poverty to 
make you a complete artist." The conversation turning 
upon the antiquity of different Italian houses, in the presence 
of Sextus V. when Pope, he maintained that his was the 
most illustrious of any, for being half unroofed, the lighfc 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 6s 

entered on all sides, a circumstance to which he attributed 
his having been enabled to exchange it for the Vatican. 

BISHOP — a Protestant Cardinal. Everything appertain- 
ing to a bishop tends, unfortunately, to place him in a false 
position. Disclaiming all intention of irreverence towards 
those who are Right Reverend by title, we cannot help say- 
ing, that when we compare their ostensible objects and pro- 
fessions with their practice, they may be more pertinently 
defined as solecisms in lawn sleeves, mitred anomalies, and 
cassocked catachreses. Claiming authority and succession 
from those apostles who were desired by their heavenly 
Master to provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass, nor 
scrip for their journey, the Episcopal Apostle forswears 
pomps, vanities, and filthy lucre, at the very moment when 
he is about to revel in their enjoyment. His revenues, ex- 
ceeding those of learned and laborious judges and prime 
ministers, may appear enormous ; but they will not be 
deemed disproportionate, if we reflect that his office, being 
nearly a sinecure, is remunerated in the inverse ratio of its 
claims. Scandal, indeed, is thus brought upon the whole 
priesthood, by the indecent opulence and luxury of one ex- 
tremity, and the degrading poverty of the other : but it must 
be confessed that the bishop is not answerable, either for 
the excess or the deficiency. Before the Reformation, being 
compelled to celibacy, he shook that supernux to the poor, 
which he now accumulates for the enrichment of his children. 
It seems to have been thought, even at the Reformation, by 
not giving his lordship a title for his wife, that he had no 
title to one. 

Forgetting Wesley's assertion, that the road to heaven* is 
too narrow for wheels, and that to ride in a coach here, and 
go to Paradise hereafter, is too great a happiness for one man, 
the Bishop, whom St. Peter enjoins to be an "ensample of 



62 THE TIN TRUMPET ; 

the flock," lives in a palace with little less than regal pomp; is 
paraded about in a stately carriage ; and by a singular want 
of tact which has the air of a mockery, decks his very ser- 
vants in the purple and fine linen which are condemned in 
scripture, as the types of a vainglorious and worldly grandeur. 
More punctual in his attendance at the House of Lords, than 
in the Lord's House, and oftener seen at the court of the 
king than in that of the temple, he faileth not to do homage 
to the monarch, whenever there is prospect of a translation, 
of which he covets every good one, save that of Enoch. His 
struggles for divine grace may be very earnest ; but they are 
less apparent than his anxiety to be made an Archbishop, 
that so he may receive the worship of' " Your Grace," from 
the mouths of men. In title he is Right Reverend, but there 
are many who doubt whether the Episcopal office with all its 
unseemly state and splendour, be either right or reverend. 
The Bishop adheres, however, to the Greek origin of his 
name — he is literally an overlooker of his flock. 

Lycurgus being asked why he had commanded offerings 
of such little value to be made to the Gods, replied — " In 
order that we may not cease to honour them. We have 
pursued a contrary course with our Episcopal Gods, and the 
honour they receive is too little, precisely because their 
revenues are too large. Their greatness has made them 
small, their wealth poor, their power weak, and we hold 
them cheap in exact proportion as they are dear to us. As 
if to complete the gross inconsistency between his life and 
its ostensible objects, the lordly successor of the lowly 
apostles, abandoning his diocess during a great portion of 
the year, sits as a peer of parliament, and mixes in all the 
unholy strife of the political arena. He takes his seat, we 
are well aware, not in his episcopal capacity, but as a feudal 
baron : if, however, he sustains two characters, which in- 
capacitate him from properly discharging the duties of either, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 63 

he must share the odium that may attach to failure in both. 
If the baron, moreover, should chance to be consigned to a 
place which is never mentioned to " ears polite," what is to 
become of the unfortunate Bishop? How must he envy his 
mitred brother of Sodor and Man ! Having little antiquarian 
lore, the writer is quite ignorant by what right the Bishops 
of Gloucester, Peterborough, Oxford, Bristol, and Chester, 
sit in the House of Lords. They cannot plead usage from 
time immemorial, for their sees were created by patent of 
Henry VIII., in which there is no mention of sitting in par- 
liament ; they cannot plead their temporal baronies, for they 
do not hold by barony, but in franc almoignej they cannot 
plead their spiritualities, for the Bishop of Sodor and Man is 
quite as spiritual as they are, and he has no seat. They 
may plead their writ of summons, but a curious consequence 
would follow the allowance of this right ; for a writ of sum- 
mons and sitting, is allowed on all hands to confer a barony 
in fee tail, the holder and the heirs of his body become noble 
in blood, and thus a descendant, male or female, of every 
clergyman who has ever held any one of these sees, and has 
sat in parliament, becomes entitled to a peerage. 

" They have reigned, but not by me ; they have become 
princes, but I know them not." For this, however, we repeat, 
the present Bishops are not answerable ; they have found, 
not formed the existing system, and we cannot expect that 
they should willingly forego its advantages. It is one of 
those monuments of the " wisdom and Christian humility of 
our ancestors," which successfully imitate the Athenian altar, 
erected to the unknown God. Pity it is, nevertheless, that 
the original and most exorbitant endowment of the episcopal 
office should have provoked Milton to exclaim, in his Letters 
on Reformation, — " They are not Bishops ; God and all good 
men know that they are not, but a tyrannical crew and cor- 
poration of impostors, that have blinded and abused the 



64 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

world so long, under that name. When he steps up into a 
a chair of pontifical pride, and changes a moderate and ex- 
emplary house for a misgoverned and haughty palace, 
spiritual dignity for carnal precedence, and secular office and 
employment for the high negotiations, of his heavenly em- 
bassage, then he degrades, then he unbishops himself." 

Far be it from us to insinuate that the present episcopal 
bench are liable to all the thunderbolts so fiercely fulminated 
against their predecessors ; but their whole system is in 
grievous need of amendment, and adaptation to the spirit of 
the age. The signs of the times are not to be mistaken, the 
handwriting on the wall is flagrant and patent, and if they 
will not take the warning and set their house in order by 
making some slight approximation towards a more equitable 
division between the dignified drones and the toiling bees ; — 
if they are determined to illustrate the " Quos Dens vult 
perdere ftrius dementat" and obstinately refuse to reform the 
church from within, they may rest assured that it will soon 
be reformed with a vengeance from without. 

Let it be stated, in justice both to the present bench and 
the people of England, that if the former are unpopular, it is 
from a dislike of their anomalous office, with its corruptions 
and abuses, rather than from any disaffection to themselves 
and still less to religion. The general learning and piety of 
their lordships, as well as their private characters, are per- 
fectly unimpeachable, in spite of the candour of one of their 
body, who being asked why he had not been more careful to 
promote merit, in some of his recent appointments, is re- 
ported to have jocosely replied — " Because merit did not 
promote me." 

BLIND, The— see— nothing. 

BLOOD — the oil of our life's lamp : — the death signature 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 6 S 

of the destroying angel. Of blood, eight parts in ten consist 
of pure water, and yet into what an infinite variety of sub- 
stances is it converted by the inscrutable chemistry of 
nature ! All the secretions, all the solids of our bodies, life 
itself, are formed from this mysterious fluid. 

T. H., who, whenever he gets beyond his depth in argu- 
ment, seeks to make his escape by a miserable pun, was once 
maintaining that the blood was not originally red, but ac- 
quired that colour in its progress. — " Pray, Sir," demanded 
his opponent — " what stage does the blood turn red in ? " — 
"Why, Sir," replied T. H., — "in the Reading Stage, I 
presume." 

BLUSHING — a suffusion least seen in those who have 
the most occasion for it. 

BODY — that portion of our system which receives the 
chief attention of Messrs. Somebody, Anybody, and Every- 
body, while Nobody cares for the soul.— Body and mind are 
harnessed together to perform in concert the journey of life, 
a duty which they will accomplish pleasantly and safely if 
the coachman, Judgment, do not drive one faster than the 
other. If he attempt this, confusion, exhaustion, and disease 
are sure to ensue. Sensualists are like savages, who cut 
down the tree to pluck all the fruit at once. Writers and 
close thinkers, on the contrary, who do not allow themselves 
sufficient relaxation, and permit the mind to " o'er-inform its 
tenement of clay," soon entail upon themselves physical or 
mental disorders, generally both. We are like lamps ; if we 
wind up the intellectual burner too high, the glass becomes 
thickened or discoloured with smoke, or it breaks, and the 
unregulated flame, blown about by every puff of wind, if not 
extinguished altogether, throws a fitful glare and distorting 
shadows over the objects that it was intended to illuminate. 

F 



66 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

The bow that is the oftenest unbent, will the longest retain 
its strength and elasticity. 

' ' Quondam cithara tacentem 

Suscitat musam, neque semper arcum 
Tendit Apollo." 

BON-MOT — see the present work— passi?n. " Collectors 
of ana and facetice? says Champfort, " are like children with 
a large cake before them ; they begin by picking out the 
plums and tit-bits, and finish by devouring the whole." He 
might also have compared their works to a snowball, which, 
in our endeavours to make it larger and larger, takes up the 
snow first, and then the dirt. 

Sheridan, when shown a single volume, entitled " The 
Beauties of Shakspeare," read it for some time with apparent 
satisfaction, and then exclaimed, " This is all very well, but 
where are the other seven volumes ? " 

BOOK — a thing formerly put aside to be read, and now 
read to be put aside. The world is, at present, divided into 
two classes — those who forget to read, and those who read to 
forget. Bookmaking, which used to be a science, is now a 
manufacture, with which, as in everything else, the market 
is so completely overstocked, that our literary operatives 
if they wish to avoid starving, must eat up one another. 
They have, for some time, been employed in cutting up 
each other, as if to prepare for the meal. Alas ! they may, 
have reason for their feast, without finding it a feast of 
reason. 

BOOKS, Prohibited. — Attempting to put the sun of reason 
into a dark lantern, that its mighty blaze may be hidden or 
revealed, according to the will of some purblind despot. 
When W. S. R. published his admirable " Letters from the 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 67 

North of Italy," they were found so little palatable to the 
Austrian emperor, that they were prohibited throughout his 
dominions. This honour the author appreciated as he ought, 
only regretting that the interdict would prevent his sending 
copies to some of his Italian friends ; a difficulty, however, 
which was soon overcome. Cancelling the original title page, 
he procured a new one to be printed, which ran as follows : — 
" A Treatise upon Sour Krout, with full directions for its pre- 
paration, and remarks upon its medicinal properties." On 
their arrival at the frontiers, the inspector compared the 
books with the Index Expurgatorius, but as he did not find 
any imperial anathema against sour krout, they were for- 
warded without further scrutiny, and safely reached their 
respective destinations. 

Rabelais said, that all the bad books ought to be bought, 
because they would not be reprinted ; a hint which has not 
been thrown away upon our Bibliomanians, who seem to 
forget that, since the invention of printing, no good book has 
ever become scarce. 

BOOKSELLER.— There is this difference between the 
heroes of Paternoster Row, and the Scandinavian warriors 
in the Hall of Valhalla, — that the former drink their wine 
out of the skulls of their friends, the authors, whereas the 
latter quaffed their's out of the skulls of their enemies. In 
ancient times, the Vates was considered a prophet as well as 
bard, but now he is barred from his profit, most of which 
goes to the bookseller, who, in return, generously allows the 
scribbler to come in for the whole of the critical abuse. It 
has been invidiously said, that as a bibliopolist lives upon 
the brains of others, he need not possess any himself. This 
is a mistake. He has the wit to coin the wit that is supplied 
to him, and thus proves his intellectual by his golden talents. 
Many a bookvender rides in his own carriage ; but I do not 

F 2 



63 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

know a single professional bookwriter who does not trudge 
a-foot. " Sic vos non vobis " — the proverb's somewhat 
musty. — If they take our honey, they cannot quarrel with us 
if we now and then give them a sting. 

BORE — a brainless, babbling button-holder. A wretch 
so deficient in tact that he cannot adapt himself to any 
society, nor perceive that all agree in thinking him disagree- 
able. Nevertheless, we forgive the man who bores us much 
more easily than the man who lets us see that we are boring 
him. Towards the former, we exercise a magnanimous com- 
passion ; but our wounded self-love cannot tolerate the latter. 
A newly-elected M.P. lately consulted his friend as to the 
occasion that he should select for his maiden speech. A 
very important subject was suggested, when the modest 
member expressed a fear, that his mind was hardly of suffi- 
cient calibre to embrace it. " Poh ! poh !" said the friend, — 
" don't be under any apprehensions about your calibre : de- 
pend upon it, they will find you bore enough." 

BOROUGHMONGERS— an extinct race of beasts of 
prey. If, as historians assert, we owe gratitude to King 
Edgar for having extirpated the wolves from England, and 
to Henry VIII. for having suppressed the monks, what do 
we not owe to the Whigs for having delivered us from the 
borough-mongers, who were, at the same time, both wolves 
and monks ? 

BREATH — air received into the lungs by many young 
men of fashion, for the important purposes of smoking a 
cigar, and whistling a tune. 

BREVITY — the soul of wit, which accounts for the tenuity 
of the present work ! Into how narrow a compass has Seneca 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 69 

compressed his account of the total destruction of Lyons by 
fire. — " Inter magnam urbem et nullum nox una interfuit" — 
between a great city and none, only a single night intervened ! 

BRIEF — the excuse of counsel for an impertinence that 
is often inexcusable. 

BUFFOON — a professional fool, whereas a wag is an 
amateur fool. 

BULL. — A copious and amusing book might be made, by 
collecting the bulls and blunders of all nations, except the 
Irish, whom we would exclude, upon the principle that deter- 
mined Martial not to describe the nose of Tongilianus, 
because " nil firtzter nasum Tongilianus habetP Of the 
French bulls, there are few better than the following. A 
Gascon nobleman had been reproaching his son with in- 
gratitude. " I owe you nothing," said the unfilial young 
man; "so far from having served me, you have always 
stood in my way ; for if you had never been born, I should at 
this moment be the next heir of my rich grandfather." 

Worthy of a place by the side of this Gallic Hibernicism 
is the niaiserie of Captain Baudin, the Commander of a 
French expedition of discovery. On opening a box of 
magnetic needles, they were found to be much rusted, which 
sensibly impaired their utility. " What else can you ex- 
pect ? " exclaimed the irritated captain ; — " all the articles 
provided by Government are shabby beyond description. 
Had they acted as I could have wished, they would have 
given us silver instead of steel needles." 

An Irishman may be described as a sort of Minotaur, half 
man and half bull. " Semibovemque virum, semivirinnque 
bovem? as Ovid has it. He might run me into a longer 
essay than Miss Edgeworth's, without exhausting the subject, 



7 o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

I shall therefore content myself with a single instance 
of his felicity in this figure of speech. In the exami- 
nation of a Connaught lad, he was asked his age. — "I 
am just twenty, your honour ; but I would have been twenty- 
one, only my mother miscarried the year before I was born." 
One American bull, and we have done. "Do you snore, 
Abel Adams ? " inquired a Yankee of his friend. — " No, Seth 
Jefferson, I do never snore." — " How do you know, Abel ? " — 
«' Because t'other day I laid awake the whole night on 
purpose to see ! " 

BURGLARY. — If the burglar who craftily examines a 
house or a shop, to see how he may best break into it and 
steal its contents, be a knave, what name should we bestow 
upon the Old Bailey barrister, who, in the defence of a con- 
fessed thief, sifts and examines the laws to ascertain where 
he may best evade or break through them, for the purpose of 
defrauding justice and of letting loose a felon to renew his 
depredations upon society? Bentham compares the con- 
fidence between a criminal and his advocate, to a compact of 
guilt between two confederated malefactors. 



AGE — an article to the manufacture of which 
our spinsters would do well to direct their 
attention, since, according to Voltaire, the 
reason of so many unhappy marriages is, that 
young ladies employ their time in making nets 
instead of cages. Putting the same thought in another 
form, we might say, that our damsels, in fishing for husbands, 
rely too much upon their personal and too little on their 
mental attractions, forgetting that an enticing bait is of little 
use unless you have a hook, line, and landing-net, that may 
secure the prey. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 71 

CANDIDATES for Holy Orders — are sometimes persons 
claiming authority to show their fellow-creatures the way to 
heaven, because they have been unable to make their own 
way upon earth. 

Some of the clamourers against the abuses of the church, 
object that the greatest dunce in our families of distinction, 
is often selected for the ministry. How unreasonable ! is it 
not better that the ground should be ploughed by asses, than 
remain untilled? I cannot, by any means approve the 
fastidiousness, any more than the bad pun of the Canadian 
Bishop, who, finding, after examining one of the candidates 
for holy orders, that he was grossly ignorant, refused to 
ordain him. " My lord ! " said the disappointed aspirant, 
" there is no imputation upon my moral character — I have a 
due sense of religion, and I am a member of the Propagci7ida 
Society." — " That I can easily believe," replied the Bishop, 
"for you are a proper goose" 

CANDIDATES for Parliament— self-trumpeters. In 
reading their addresses to electors, it is amusing to observe 
how invariably, and how very impartially, each candidate, 
when describing the sort of representative whom the worthy 
and enlightened constituents ought to return, draws a 
•portrait of himself blazoning the little nothings that he has 
achieved, and, sometimes, like the Pharisee, introducing a 
fling at his opponent, by thanking heaven that he is not like 
yonder Publican. For the benefit, of such portrait painters, 
I will record an apposite anecdote of Mirabeau, premising 
that his face was deeply indented with the small-pox. 
Anxious to be put in nomination for the National Assembly, 
he made a long speech to the voters, minutely pointing out 
the precise requisites that a proper and efficient member 
ought to possess, and, of course, drawing as accurate a like- 
ness as possible of himself. He was answered by Talley- 



72 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

rand, who contented himself with the following short speech : 
" It appears to me, gentlemen, that M. de Mirabeau has 
omitted to state the most important of all the legislative 
qualifications, and I will supply his deficiency by impressing 
upon your attention, that a perfectly unobjectionable member 
of the Assembly ought, above all things, to be very much 
marked with the small-pox." Talleyrand got the laugh, 
which in France always carries the election. 

CANDOUR — in some people maybe compared to barley- 
sugar drops, in which the acid preponderates over the sweet- 
ness. 

_ CANT — originally the name of a Cameronian preacher in 
Scotland, who had attained the faculty of preaching in such 
a tone and dialect, as to be understood by none but his own 
congregation. This worthy, however, has been outcanted by 
his countryman, Irving, whose Babel tongues possessed the 
superior merit of being unintelligible not only to his flock, 
but even to himself. 

In the present acceptation of the word, as a synonyme of 
hypocrisy — as a pharisaical pretension to superior religion 
and virtue, substituted by those great professors of both, who 
are generally the least performers of either, cant may be 
designated the characteristic of modern England. Simu- 
lation and dissimulation are its constituent elements — the 
substitution of the form for the spirit, of appearances for 
realities, of words for things. 

CARE — the tax paid by the higher classes for their 
privileges and possessions. Often amounting to the full 
value of the property upon which it is levied, care may be 
termed the poor-rate of the rich. Like death, care is a 
sturdy summoner, who will take no denial, and who is no 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 73 

respecter of persons. Nor is the importunate dun a with 
improved in his manners since the time of Horace, for he 
beards the great and the powerful in their very palaces, and 
scares them even in their throne-like beds, while the peasant 
sleeps undisturbed upon his straw pallet. Under the per- 
petual influence of these drawbacks and compensations, the 
inequalities of fortune, if measured by the criterion of enjoy- 
ment, are rather apparent than real ; for it is difficult to be 
rich without care, and easy to be happy without wealth. 

CASTLE. — In England every man's cottage is held to be 
his castle, which he is authorised to defend, even against the 
assaults of the king ; but it may be doubted whether the same 
privilege extends to Ireland. — " My client," said an Irish 
advocate, pleading before Lord Norbury, in an action of tres- 
pass, " is a poor man — he lives in a hovel, and his miserable 
dwelling is in a forlorn and dilapidated state ; but, still, thank 
God ! the labourer's cottage, however ruinous its plight, is his 
sanctuary and his castle. Yes — the winds may enter it, and 
the rains may enter it, but the king cannot enter it." — " What ! 
not the reigning king ? " asked the joke-loving judge. 

CASUISTS, A question for. — Lord Clarendon, speaking 
of Fletcher of Saltoun, says, " he would willingly have sacri- 
ficed his life to serve his country, though he would not have 
committed a base action to save it." Quoere? — Can any 
action be termed base which has for its object the salvation 
of our native country ? Was Brutus a murderer or a patriot, 
when he delivered Rome from the usurper of its liberties by 
assassinating Caesar ? Is tyrannicide justifiable homicide ? 
— " Non nobis est tantas componere lites." 

CAT — a domestic quadruped, commonly, but, we believe, 
erroneously supposed to have nine lives ; whence, we pre- 



74 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

sume, a whip, with the same number of lashes, is called a 
cat-o'-nine tails. Few creatures have more strikingly exhi- 
bited the caprice and folly of mankind, for the cat, according 
to times and localities, has been either blindly reverenced or 
cruelly persecuted. Among the Egyptians it was a capital 
punishment to kill this animal, which was worshipped in a 
celebrated temple dedicated to the goddess Bubastis, who is 
said to have assumed the feline form to avoid Typhon ; a 
fable, reversed in the fairy tale of the cat metamorphosed 
into a young lady. The sympathies of the Egyptians seem 
to have descended to the Arabians, for it is recorded of 
Mahomet, that when a favourite cat had fallen asleep, on the 
sleeve of his rich robe, and the call to prayers sounded, he 
drew his scymetar and cut off the sleeve, rather choosing to 
spoil his garment, than disturb the slumbers of his four- 
footed friend. 

In England, on the contrary, owing partly to the super- 
stitious connection of this animal with witches, and partly to 
that barbarism which never wants an excuse for cruelty, the 
unfortunate cat appears to have been always considered a 
proscribed creature, against one or other of whose nine lives, 
if it ventured beyond the threshold of its owner's house, 
every hand might be lifted. 

CATACHRESIS— the abuse of a trope, or an apparent 
contradiction in terms, as when the law pronounces the acci- 
dental killing of a woman to be manslaughter. The name of 
the Serpentine River, which is a straight canal, involves a 
catachresis, and we often, unconsciously, perpetrate others, in 
our daily discourse ; as when we talk of wooden tomb-stones, 
iron mile-stones, glass ink-horns, brass shoeing-horns, &c. 

Every one recollects the fervent hope expressed by the late 
Lord Castlereagh, that the people of this happy country 
would never turn their backs upon themselves. This was 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 75 

only a misplaced trope ; but there is, sometimes, among his 
fellow-countrymen, a confusion of ideas that involves an 
impossibility. An Irishman's horse fell with him, throwing 
his rider to some distance, when the animal, in struggling to 
get up, entangled its hind leg in the stirrup. " Oh, very 
well, sir," said the dismounted cavalier ; " if you're after 
getting up on your own back, I see there will be no room 
for me." 

The following string of Catachreses is versified, with some 
additions and embellishments, from a sermon of an ignorant 
field-preacher : — 

Staying his hand, which, like a hammer, 

Had thump'd and bump'd his anvil-book, 
And waving it to still the clamour, 

The tub-man took a loftier look, 
And thus, condensing all his powers, 
Scatter'd his oratorio flowers. — 
' ' What ! will ye still, ye heathen flee, 

From sanctity and grace, 
Until your blind idolatry 

Shall stare ye in the face ? 
Will ye throw off the mask, and show 
Thereby the cloven foot below ? — 
Do— but remember, ye must pay 
What's due to ye on settling day ! 
Justice's eye, it stands to sense, 

Can never stomach such transgressions, 
Nor can the hand of Providence 

Wink at your impious expressions. 
The infidel thinks vengeance dead, 

And in his fancied safety chuckles, 
But atheism's Hydra head 

Shall have a rap upon the knuckles ! " 

CELIBACY— a vow by which the priesthood, in some 
countries, swear to content themselves with the wives of 
other people. 



76 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

CEREMONY — all that is considered necessary by many 
in religion and friendship. 

CENSORIOUSNESS— judging of others by ourselves. 
It will invariably be found, that the most censurable are the 
most censorious ; while those who have the least need of 
indulgence, are the most indulgent. We should pardon the 
mistakes of others as freely as if we ourselves were con- 
stantly committing the same faults, and yet avoid their errors 
as carefully as if we never forgave them. There is no 
precept, however, that cannot be evaded. " We are ordered 
to forgive our enemies but not our friends," cries a quibbler. 
" We may forgive our own enemies, but not the heretics, who 
are the enemies of God," said Father Segnerand to Louis 
XIII. Many people imagine that they are not only con- 
cealing their own misconduct in this world, but making 
atonement for it in the next, by visiting the misdeeds of 
others with a puritanical severity. They may well be impla- 
cable ! " I should never have preserved my reputation," 
said Lady B — , " if I had not carefully abstained from visit- 
ing demireps. I must be strait-laced in the persons of others, 
because I have been so loose in my own." — " My dear Lady 
B — ! " exclaimed her sympathising friend, " upon this prin- 
ciple you ought to retire into a convent ! " 

CHALLENGE — calling upon a man who has hurt your 
feelings to give you satisfaction by — shooting you through 
the body. 

CHANCELLOR, The present Lord*— One who throws 
his own lustre upon that high office, from which all his pre- 
decessors have borrowed their's. It has been objected to 

* For present, we must now read late. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 77 

Lord Brougham that he is ambitious, and long had his eye 
upon the Great Seal before he obtained it. So much the 
better. If nature had not stamped him with her great seal, 
he would never have obtained that of England. What is it 
to us that the Chancellor's wig was in his head, long before 
his head was in the wig ? We know that they fit one another 
admirably, and that is enough. Lord Brougham has ex- 
perienced the usual fate of reformers — gross ingratitude ; but 
what can he expect, when he provokes all by his superiority 
to all, in virtue as well as talent ? His disinterestedness is a 
reproach to the sordid, his prudence to the destructives, his 
determined spirit of reform to the conservatives ; and because 
he is too independent and lofty to belong to any party, he is 
outrageously abused by all. This cry confused — " Of owls 
and monkeys, asses, apes, and dogs," — " full of sound and 
fury, signifying nothing," obscures his lustre about as much 
as the baying of wolves, or the cackling of goslings, darkens 
the moon. If he does not immortalize them by his notice, 
as Pope did his contemptible detractors, what will posterity 
know of the serpents and geese who combine to hiss at him? 
There are savages who, in an eclipse of the sun, endeavour 
to drive away the interceptor of their light, by the most 
hideous clamour they can raise. The enemies whom the 
Chancellor has thrown into the shade, have tried a simi- 
lar experiment ; but, strange to say, they still remain 
eclipsed ! 

In my high opinion of Lord Brougham, I have sometimes 
been too prone to fatigue my friends with his praises ; a ten- 
dency which, upon one "occasion, elicited a pun bad enough 
to be recorded. My assertion, that he was the greatest man 
in England, being warmly contested, I loudly exclaimed,, 
"Where is there a greater?" — "Here!" said the punch- 
making T. H., with a look of exquisite simplicity, at the same 
time holding up a nutmeg grater. 



78 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

CHANGE— the only thing that is constant; mutability 
being an immutable law of the universe. 

" Men change with fortune, manners change with climes, 
Tenets with books, and principles with times." 

CHARACTER, Individual — a compound from the cha- 
racters of others. If it be true that one fool makes many, it 
is not less clear that many fools, or many wise men, make 
one. The noscitur d socio is universally applicable. Like 
the chameleon, our mind takes the colour of what surrounds 
it. However small may be the world of our own familiar 
coterie, it conceals from us the world without, as the minutest 
object, held close to the eye, will shut out the sun. Our 
mental hue depends as completely on the social atmosphere 
in which we move, as our complexion upon the climate in 
which we live. 

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that it is sometimes 
profitable to associate with graceless characters. A repro- 
bate fellow once laid his worthy associate a bet of five guineas 
that he could not repeat the creed. It was accepted, and his 
friend repeated the Lord's prayer. " Confound you ! n cried 
the former, who imagined that he had been listening to the 
creed, — " I had no idea you had such a memory. There are 
your five guineas ! " 

CHARITY — the only thing that we can give away with- 
out losing it. 

' ' True charity is truest thrift, 
More than repaid for every gift, 
By grateful prayers enroll'd on high. 
And its own heart's sweet eulogy, 
Which, like the perfume-giving rose, 
Possesses still what it bestows." 

Charity covereth a multitude of sins, and the English are 






OR, HEADS AND TALES. 79 

the most bountiful people upon earth ! The best almsgiving, 
perhaps, is a liberal expenditure ; for that encourages the 
industrious, while indiscriminate charity only fosters idlers 
and impostors. The latter is little better than mere selfish- 
ness, prompting us to get rid of an uneasy sensation. Some- 
times, however, we refuse our bounty to a suppliant, because 
he has hurt our feelings ; while the beggar who has pleased 
us by making us laugh at his buffoonery, seldom goes unre- 
warded. Delpini, the clown, applied to the late king, when 
Prince of Wales, for pecuniary assistance, drawing a lamen- 
table picture of his destitute state. As he was in the habit 
of thus importuning his Royal Highness, his suit was re- 
jected. At last, as he met the Prince coming out of Carlton 
House, he exclaimed — "Ah, votre altesse ! Ah, mon Prince! 
if you no assist de pauvre Delpini, I must go to your 
papa's bench ! " Tickled by the oddity of the phrase, the 
Prince laughed heartily, and immediately complied with his 
request. 

CHEERFULNESS—" The best Hymn to the Divinity/ 7 
according to Addison, and all rational religionists. When 
we have passed a day of innocent enjoyment; when "our 
bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne ;" when our gratified 
and grateful feelings, sympathising with universal nature, 
make us sensible, as John of Salisbury says, that " Gratior 
it dies, et soles melius nitent" — we may be assured that we 
have been performing, however unconsciously, an acceptable 
act of devotion. Pure religion may generally be measured 
by the cheerfulness of its professors, and superstition by the 
gloom of its victims. Ille placet Deo, cui placet Deus. — He 
to whom God is pleasant, is pleasant to God. 

CHESS — a wooden or ivory allegory. Sir William Jones, 
who claims the invention of this game for the Hindoos, 



80 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

traces the successive corruptions of the original Sanscrit 
term, through the Persians and Arabs, into scacchi, echess 
■ — chess ; which, by a whimsical concurrence of circum- 
stances, has given birth to the English word check, and 
even a name to the Exchequer of Great Britain. In 
passing through Europe, the Oriental forms and names 
have suffered material change. The ruch, or dromedary, 
we have corrupted into rook. The bishop was with us 
formerly an archer, while the French denominated it alfin, 
andy<?/, which were perversions of the original Eastern term 
for the elephant. 

The ancient Persian game consisted of the following 
pieces : — 

i. Schach . . . The King. 

2. Pherz . . . The Vizier, or General. 

3. Phil .... The Elephant. 

4. Aspen Suar . The Horseman. 

5. Ruch .... The Dromedary. 

6. Beydal . . . The Foot-soldiers. 

In process of time, the Persian names were gradually 
translated into French, or modified by French terminations. 
Schach was translated into Roy — the King; Pherz, the Vizier, 
became Fercie — Fierce — Fierge — Vierge; and this last was 
easily converted into a lady — Dame. The Elephant Phil 
was altered into Fol or Fou; the Horseman became a 
Cavalier or Knight, while the Dromedary, Ruch, was con- 
verted into a Tour, or Tower, probably from being con- 
founded with the Elephant, which is usually represented as 
carrying a castle. The foot-soldiers were retained by the 
name of Pietons, or Pions, whence our Pawns. 

In its westward progress, the game of chess adapted itself 
to the habits and institutions of the countries that fostered 
it. The prerogative of the King gradually extended itself, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. El 

until it became unlimited : the agency of the Princes, in lieu 
of the Queen, who does not exist in the original chess-board, 
bespeaks forcibly the nature of the oriental customs, which 
exclude females from all influence and power. In Persia, 
these Princes were changed into a single Vizier, and for this 
Vizier the Europeans, with the same gallantry that had 
prompted the French to add a Queen to the pack of cards, 
substituted a Queen on the chess-board. 

We record the following anecdote, as a warning to 
such of our male and married readers as may be in the 
perilous habit of playing chess with a wife. Ferrand, 
Count of Flanders, having constantly defeated the Countess 
at chess, she conceived a hatred against him, which came 
to such a height, that when the Count was taken prisoner 
at the battle of Bovines, she suffered him to remain a 
long time in prison, though she could easily have procured 
his release. 

CHILD, Spoilt — an unfortunate victim, who proves the 
weakness of his parents' judgment, much more forcibly than 
the strength of their affection. Doomed to feel by daily ex- 
perience, that a blind love is as bad as a clear-sighted hatred, 
the spoilt child, when he embitters the life of those who have 
poisoned his, is not so much committing an act of ingrati- 
tude, as of retributive justice. Is it not natural that he 
should love those too little, who by loving him too much 
have proved themselves his worst enemies ? — How can we 
expect him to be a blessing to us, when we have been a 
curse to him ? It is the awarded and just punishment of 
a weak over-indulgence, that the more we fondle a spoilt 
child, the more completely shall we alienate him, as an 
arrow flies the farther from us the closer we draw it to our 
bosom. 

As a gentle hint to others similarly annoyed, we record 

G 



8a THE TIN TRUMPET; 

the rebuke of a visitor, to whom a mother expressed her 
apprehension that he was disturbed by the crying of her 
spoilt brat. — " Not at all, Madam," was the reply ; "lam 
always delighted to hear such children cry." — "Indeed ! why 
so?" — "Because in all well-regulated families, they are im- 
mediately sent out of the room." 

CHRISTIANITY, Primitive.— " There hath not been 
discovered in any age," says Lord Bacon, " any philosophy, 
opinion, religion, law, or discipline, which so greatly exalts 
the common, and lessens individual, interest as the Christian 
religion doth." The perpetual denunciations of the rich and 
the great, the repeated averment that the Lord is no re- 
specter of persons, the lowly origin of Jesus Christ in His 
earthly capacity, the selection of his Apostles and chief 
missionaries from among the labouring poor, or from women, 
a class which had previously exercised no influence in 
society, all tend to confirm the assertion of Bacon, and to 
impart to primitive Christianity a character which, in modern 
times, would almost be termed radical ; while it forms a most 
significant contrast to the wealth, splendour, and haughty 
pride of all those spiritual corporations, which are called 
Established Churches. 

He that would form a correct notion of primitive Christi- 
anity, should study the following character of its Founder, as 
drawn by an eloquent divine : — " Christ in his sympathetic cha- 
racter, was fairer than the sons of men, therefore full of grace 
were his lips. His humanity was not, like ours, degenerate, 
but refined and exalted. God breathed direct into him. Sin 
had not impaired the delicate and sensitive perceptions of his 
nature ; had not chilled the fountain of his feelings, nor the 
warm current of his affections. Prompt to feel the woes of 
others, the sympathetic strings of his heart, constantly at- 
tuned and tremulously sensitive, vibrated at every sigh of the 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 83 

sorrowful spirit, and responded full and deep to every sound 
of human woe. He identified himself with disgrace and 
sorrow, and even with sin. He sympathised with the suf- 
ferers in his humanity, before he exerted the power of his 
divinity for their relief." 

CHRISTIANITY, Fashionable— keeping a pew at some 
genteel church or chapel, to which ladies pay a civil visit 
when the weather is fine, when they have got a new bonnet 
or pelisse to display, and a smart livery servant to follow 
them with a prayer-book. They curtsey very low at the 
mention of the Lord's name, making the homage of the 
knees a substitute for that of the heart ; and duly receive 
the sacrament, which, by a strange perversion of ideas, they 
look upon as a proof of the sincerity of their belief, and an 
absolution for the laxity of their practice. 

Fashionable male Christianity is demonstrated by an oc- 
casional nap in a cushioned and carpeted pew ; in cheerfully 
paying Easter offerings and Church dues ; in maintaining a 
certain decency of appearance ; and more especially in 
hating those who presume to differ in matters of religion. 

That they possess the outward and visible signs of Christi- 
anity, both sexes exhibit incontestable proofs ; but as to the 
inward and spiritual grace, they leave it to the vulgar and 
the fanatical. They are too polite to travel Zionward in 
such company, and would rather sacrifice heaven altogether, 
than reach it by any ungenteel mode. Provided they may 
be among the exclusives here, they will cheerfully run the 
risk of being among the excluded hereafter. 

Christianity will never have received its full development, 
and have accomplished its final triumph, until its spirit 
shall have surmounted its ceremonials, and the reformed 
religion shall have undergone a new and more searching 
reformation. 

g 2 



84 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

CHURCH and STATE, Alliance of— an interchange 
of contamination ; a league between the civil magistrate 
and the priesthood, ostensibly for the maintenance of loyalty, 
and the suppression of heresy ; — in reality for the enforce- 
ment of political and religious subjection. If an establish- 
ment be right, religious liberty is not : and if religious liberty- 
be right, an establishment is not. The compact between 
Pontius Pilate and the chiefs of the Synagogue, which 
ended in the crucifixion of Christ, was but a foreshadowing 
of that unscriptural union of Church and State, which may 
almost be said to have crucified Christianity. Dr. War- 
burton, and others, regard the religion of the majority, as the 
religion of the State : so that if the Church be united with 
the State, through the king at its head, it has in England an 
Episcopalian, in Scotland a Presbyterian, and in Ireland a 
Catholic head. History and experience attest that this 
coalition is equally degrading and mischievous to both parties. 
Equality of civil and religious rights being the grand basis 
of all safe and healthy government, the State ought not to 
identify itself with one sect, even where it tolerates all others ; 
it is its duty to protect all alike, without favour or dis- 
countenance. For the information of the worthy inhabitants 
of Noodledom, and of those old women in petticoats or 
pantaloons, who imagine that the dissolution of this un- 
sanctioned union would extinguish religion and dissolve the 
whole frame of civil society, we will state the principal 
changes that it would effect. The king, no longer the head 
of the Church, would cease to appoint the Bishops ; the 
Lords spiritual would have no seats as such in parliament ; 
the doctrines and worship of the Church would not any 
longer be regulated and enforced by act of parliament ; 
civil penalties for religious offences would cease to exist, and 
all Toleration Acts would die a natural death. Unless it can 
be shown that the Dissenters, who have no lordly Hierarchy, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 85 

and no Church and State union, are less religious and less 
patriotic than the Episcopalians, which no one will be hardy 
enough to assert, what injury could piety or patriotism 
sustain by placing both parties upon the same broad level of 
independence ? Manifest, however, and manifold would be 
the blessings springing from such a change. Jealousies and 
heartburnings would be healed ; it is not too much to assert 
that whatever the Church might lose, would be so much clear 
gain to Christianity ; while the State would be benefited by 
the removal of all grounds of discontent or disaffection from 
the numerous and hourly increasing class of conscientious 
Dissenters. 

That great advantage would accrue to both parties from a 
severance of the Church and State, is no new-fangled notion 
of radicals or visionaries, but an opinion which has been 
deliberately formed and frankly expressed by many wise and 
pious men, even among the dignitaries of the Church itself. 
Such were the sentiments of the good and the illustrious 
Locke. " The single end," says Dr. Paley, " which we ought 
to propose by religious establishments, is the preservation 
and communication of religious . knowledge. Every other 
idea, and every other end that have been mixed with this, — 
as the making of the Church an engine, or even an ally of 
the State, converting it into the means of strengthening or 
of diffusing influence, — or regarding it as a support of regal, 
in opposition to popular forms of government, — have served 
only to debase the institution, and to introduce into it 
numerous corruptions and abuses."* And again in his 
" Evidences of Christianity," p. ii. ch. 2, the same writer says, 
" We find in Christ's religion, no scheme of building tcp a 
hierarchy, or of ministering to the views of human govern- 
ments" " Our religion, as it came out of the hand of its 

* Moral and Political Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 305. 



85 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

founder and his apostles, exhibited a coinplete abstraction 
from all views, either of ecclesiastical or civil policy." In 
fact it is little better than profanation to imagine that the 
religion of God and of truth stands in need of the support 
of the State. " An alliance between Church and State in a 
Christian Commonwealth," says Burke, " is in my opinion, 
an idle and a fanciful speculation." 

Many of the most temperate and enlightened members of 
the establishment are ashamed of their connection with the 
State, and would willingly see it quietly dissolved. On their 
account, and not in apprehension of the clamorous and 
sordid brethren, who deal in fulminations and menaces, 
rather than arguments, may the sincere Christian desire to 
see the Church divorced from an union which many have 
pronounced adulterous. Herein he will agree with Bishop 
Warburton, who says in his letters, " The Church, like the 
Ark of Noah, is worth saving ; not for the sake of the unclean 
beasts and vermin that almost filled it, and probably made 
most noise and clamour in itj but for, the little corner of 
rationality, that was as much distressed by the stink within, 
as by the tempest without." 

To a rotten ship, say the Italians, every wind is contrary. 
No wonder, therefore, that the Church finds so many op- 
ponents of its course : — but for those who have occasioned the 
clamour to complain of it, and fulminate anathemas and 
nick-names, will but aggravate the evil, and make its in- 
evitable remedy more quick and unsparing. What renders 
the folly and inconsistency of such conduct more glaring, is 
the fact that some of the most distinguished prelates of the 
Church have been the most strenuous advocates of Reform. 
"A Reformer," says Bishop Watson, "of Luther's temper 
and talents, would, in five years, persuade the people to 
compel the parliament to abolish tithes, to extinguish 
pluralities, to enforce residence, to confine episcopacy to the 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 87 

overseeing of dioceses, to expunge the Athanasian Creed 
from our Liturgy, to. free Dissenters from Test Acts, and 
the ministers of the establishment from subscription to 
human articles of faith. These, and other matters respecting 
the Church, ought to be done." — Letter to the Duke of Grafton. 

CHURCH and KING, Toast of— usually means, ac- 
cording to Dr. Parr, a Church without the gospel, and a 
King above the law. 

CIGAR-SMOKING— vomiting an offensive exhalation 
in the face of every passenger. As it was said of Virgil that, 
in his Georgics, he threw his dung about him with an air of 
dignity, so may we allow Vesuvius and Mount Etna to 
smoke, without conceding that privilege to every puny 
whiffler who may think fit to poison the air with the con- 
tents of his mouth. Every such culprit ought to be made to 
swallow his own smoke, like the improved steam-engines. It 
is a solecism in good manners, that a quasi gentleman should 
adopt this ploughman's habit, even in the open air ; but to 
attempt it in any sort of mixed society, whether in a public 
room or on the top of a stage-coach, should subject the 
perpetrator to an unceremonious expulsion. It has, never- 
theless, one advantage, it entices fools to be silent, or only to 
talk smoke, which is at least an inaudible annoyance. 

After all, perhaps, there is much to be said on both sides, — 
not of the cigar, for there both sides are alike, — but of the 
question — audi alteram partem : condemn not a cigar before 
you have smoked one. Of this last enormity I was never 
guilty, but, methinks I might point the wit of some fumigator 
to give a reason for the smoke that is in him ; even as the 
grindstone may sharpen, though it was never known to cut : 

11 Ego fungar vice cotis, acutum 
Reddere quae ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi." 



88 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

Voyons / there is an inspiration that may vindicate tobacco 
without its aid ; suppose we, therefore, some puffer of 
Havannah, to evaporate the following: — 

EFFUSION- (By a Cigar-Smoker). 

Warriors ! who from the cannon's mouth blow fire, 

Your fame to raise, 

Upon its blaze, 
Alas ! ye do but light your funeral pyre ! — 

Tempting fate's stroke, 
Ye fall, and all your glory ends in smoke. 
Safe in my chair from wounds and woe, 
My fire and smoke from mine own mouth I blow. 

Ve booksellers ! who deal, like me, in puffs, 

The public smokes, 

You and your hoax, 
And turns your empty vapour to rebuffs. 

Ye through the nose 
Pay for each puff; when mine the same way flows, 
It does not run me into debt ; 
And thus, the more I fume, the less I fret. 

Authors ! created to be puff d to death, 

And fill the mouth 

Of some uncouth 
Bookselling wight, who sucks your brains and breath, 

Your leaves thus far 
{Without its fire) resemble my cigar ; 
But vapid, uninspired, and flat : 
When, when, O Bards, will ye compose like that ? 

Since life and the anxieties that share 

Our hope and trust, 

Are smoke and dust, 
Give me the smoke and dust that banish care. — 

The roll'd leaf bring, 
Which from its ashes, Phcenix-like, can spring ; 
The fragrant leaf whose magic balm 
Can, like Nepenthe, all our sufferings charm. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 89 

Oh, what supreme beatitude is this ! 

What soft and sweet 

Sensations greet, 
My soul, and wrap it in Elysian bliss ! 

I soar above, 
Dull earth in these ambrosial clouds, like Jove, 
And from mine Empyrean height, 
Look down upon the world with calm delight. 

CIRCLE, The social — a dull merry-go-round which makes 
us first giddy, and then sick. What is called the round of 
pleasure, may be compared to a knife-grinder's wheel. 
When its rotations are duly regulated and adapted to the 
end proposed, it gives point to the wit, while it brightens, 
sharpens, and polishes the general surface of the mind and 
manners. But if we whirl it round with an unintermitting 
rapidity, it takes off the edge of enjoyment, and soon wears 
out that which it was intended to refresh and renovate. We 
have Christian epicureans, who advocate a short life and a 
merry one, as staunchly as their pagan predecessors, and cry 
out, with Sir Henry Wotton, that they had rather live five 
Mays than fifty Novembers. But unfortunately, a short life 
is not always a merry one, nor is a merry one necessarily 
short. We must live our appointed term, whether for good 
or evil, for we cannot suck out the sweets of life, and then 
lay it down like a squeezed orange. Throwing it away is 
not getting rid of it. A merry youth may turn to a mournful 
old age ; we may make a boast of leaving our sins when they 
have deserted us, and of having mastered our passions when 
we have only worn them out ; but their ghosts may haunt 
us in the shape of gout, dropsy, dyspepsia and other tor- 
ments, when we are only living to do penance for the excesses 
of our youth. 

An old rake who has survived himself, is the most pitiable 
object in creation. If we discount our allotted portion of 
pleasure, and live upon the capital instead of the interest, at 



90 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

the outset of life, we must expect to be bankrupts at its 
close. If we cut down the tree for the sake of its spring 
blossoms, we cannot apply to it for fruits in autumn, or shelter 
in the winter. The hours may seem short that are passed 
in revelry and dissipation ; but to suppose that as a matter 
of course we can thus abbreviate our prescribed term, and 
make death become due, just as we are tired of life, is to fall 
into the ludicrous error of the Irishman, who applied to his 
friend to discount a bill of exchange, stating that it had only 
thirty days to run. When he brought it, however, it was 
found that forty days would elapse before it became due, 
in consequence of which his friend objected to cash it. 
"Ah, now !" said the Hibernian, " you've forgotten that it is 
Christmas time. Look how short the days are ! Sure, if it 
was summer, the whole forty wouldn't make more than 
thirty." 

CIRCUMSTANCES.— If a letter were to be addressed 
to this most influential word, concluding thus — " I am, Sir, 
your very obedient humble servant ; " — the greater part of 
the world might subscribe it, without deviating from the 
strictest veracity. 

CIVILIZATION, Advancement of— a consolatory pro- 
gression, which ought to make us proud of the present, and 
to inspire us with confidence in the future. If one of our 
savage ancestors, slaughtered, we will suppose, by the in- 
cursions of some hostile horde, or burnt as a sacrifice in the 
wicker cages of the Druids, were to revive in the present 
era, he would find it difficult to pronounce whether the 
greatest change had occurred in the physical or moral state 
of his native land. When he expired, our island, covered 
with dense unhealthy forests, or noxious swamps and wil- 
dernesses, was thinly inhabited by half-naked tribes, for ever 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 91 

contending with cold and famine, with the beasts of the 
field, or with fellow barbarians still more ferocious. At his 
resuscitation he beholds, with utter amazement, how all the 
past centuries have been the diligent slaves of the present, 
clearing the forests, draining morasses, digging canals and 
wells, levelling hills, filling up valleys, making innumerable 
roads and railways, converting the whole surface of the 
country into a beautiful and productive garden, or studding 
it with churches and noble or elegant buildings for every 
imaginable purpose of use and ornament. 

As yet, however, he will have seen nothing. To give him 
some faint conception of what civilization has effected since 
the time of his death, I would read to him a striking passage 
from a modern writer,* showing how the comforts and 
luxuries which no king could command a few centuries ago, 
are now, under the influence of peace and commerce, brought 
within the reach of the meanest peasant ; — how ships are 
crossing the seas in all directions to minister to his enjoy- 
ments ; — how in China they are gathering tea ; in the West 
Indies sugar and cotton ; in Italy feeding worms, in Saxony 
shearing sheep ; — how steam engines are spinning and 
weaving, and pumping out mines ; — how coaches are travel- 
ling night and day to expedite letters ; — how vessels and 
vehicles are conveying fuel to every door ; — how fleets are 
sailing, and armies are sustained to secure for every subject 
of the realm protection from foreign or domestic violence. 
I would endeavour to make my barbarian auditor understand 
that our progress in the intellectual world has been still 
greater and more marvellous ; I would tell him that almost 
every man in modern England can read and write ; that 
penny magazines and halfpenny newspapers are composed 
by authors of talent for the instruction and amusement of 

* See Dr. Arnott's "Elements of Physics." 



92 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

the poor ; that in intellectual pleasures, the purest and most 
exalted of all, the mechanic is upon a par with the monarch ; 
and that under the salutary influences of Reform, our legis- 
lature, instead of upholding, as heretofore, the privileges of 
the few, and increasing the oppression of the many, will 
study to secure the greatest happiness to the greatest 
number. I would point out to him that as improvement 
must now advance in an incalculably accelerated ratio, the 
melioration of the last thousand years will probably be sur- 
passed in the course of the next one or two centuries ; and 
then, desiring him to throw his mind forward, if he could, 
to the termination of that period, I would lead him to form 
a notion of what has been, and will be accomplished by the 
march of intellect and the progress of civilization. 

CLUB. — Dr. Johnson, himself a member of one of these 
societies, designates a club as " an assembly of good fellows, 
meeting under certain conditions ; " a definition which would 
be hardly applicable now-a-days, unless the words "for 
nothing" were inserted after the adjective "good." Far 
from originating in sociableness, professional sympathies, 
or a love of intellectual improvement, our modern clubs, 
enrolling without associating a mob of strangers, are simply 
and solely founded upon selfishness and sensuality. What 
are their leading objects, is thus stated by a writer in one 
of our magazines : — " Epicurism, in the least elevated ac- 
ceptation of that misunderstood word — to place the greatest 
possible luxury, but more especially the pleasures of the 
palate, within reach of the lowest possible sum — to combine 
cxclusiveness with voluptuousness — to foster, at the same 
moment, the love of self, and the alienation from others — 
to remove men from their proper and natural mode of living 
— to enable five hundred a-year to command the state, style, 
and splendour of five thousand — to destroy the taste for 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 93 

simple and domestic pleasures — and to substitute a longing 
for all the expensive and sensual enjoyments that might have 
gratified an ancient Sybarite." 

A professional or exclusive club is the most shy, sullen, 
reserved, and unamiable of all institutions. — " Its union of 
one class is a separation from all others ; the junction of its 
members is a dismemberment from the general body of 
citizens ; it is dissocial in its very association. It is a cabal, 
a caste, a clique, a coterie, a junto, a conspiracy, a knot, a 
pack, a gang ; anything, in short, that is close, selfish, dis- 
junctive, and inhospitable : but if there be in such narrow 
fellowship any single element of sociability, why then the 
monks who planted their convents in the desert of the 
Thebaid, were sociable beings, and useful members of 
society. Goldsmith very properly condemns the man of 
talent, 

" ' who narrowed his mind, 
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.' 

" If the division of the male community into grades and 
classes be a confessed evil, what shall we say to the wide 
separation of the sexes which this club-mania is daily and 
rapidly effecting. It will be admitted, that man and woman 
were meant for one another, collectively as well as sepa- 
rately. Socially speaking, they are as naturally married to 
each other, in the aggregate, as are the individual husband 
and wife ; and * whom God hath joined together let no man 
put asunder.' The beneficial, the civilizing influences, which 
the sexes mutually impart and receive in society, are best to 
be appreciated by the deep and instant degradation which 
Nature, who never suffers her laws to be violated with im- 
punity, has invariably entailed upon their disjunction. For 
evidence of this fact, it will be only necessary to refer to the 
monasteries and convents. In the society of man, the softer 



94 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

sex, discarding some portion of its frivolity and inherent 
weakness, acquires mental corroboration, and is impercep- 
tibly imbued with the best and finest emanations of mas- 
culine character. In female society, the lord of the creation, 
losing the ruggedness, arrogance, and licentious coarseness 
of his nature, becomes softened, courteous, and refined, 
chastening himself with feminine graces, while he loses not 
a fraction of his proper manliness and dignity. Polish is 
the result of collision, both morally and physically ; and 
man's iron nature is not injured, or unduly mollified, but 
made more useful and attractive, by coming in contact with 
the magnet of beauty. Acting at once as a stimulant and 
a restraint, the social intercourse of the two sexes draws 
forth and invigorates all the purifying, exalting, and delight- 
ful qualities of our common nature ; while it tends to sup- 
press, and, not seldom, to eradicate those of an opposite 
character. From this unrestricted communion flow the 
graces, the affections, the charms, the sanctities, the chari- 
ties, of life ; and as benignant Nature ever blesses the in- 
dividual who contributes to the advancement of his species, 
from the same source is derived our purest, most exquisite, 
and most enduring happiness. 

" I lay it down as a broad, incontrovertible axiom, that no 
married man has a right to belong to a club, and to become 
an habitual absentee from his home, indulging in hoggish 
epicurism, while his wife and family are perhaps keeping 
Lent, that he may afford to feast. What hath he sworn to 
in his marriage-oath? Merely to maintain his wife, and to 
make her the mother of his children? No such thing; he 
hath sworn to forsake all others, and to cleave only unto 
her, until death shall part them. Is it consistent, either 
with the letter or the spirit of this vow, that he should 
deprive her of his society, and make a sort of concubine of 
his club ? Is a virtuous, honourable, and accomplished wife 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 95 

to be treated like an impure Delilah, into whose house her 
paramour sneaks in the dark, and skulks away again in the 
early morning? The little occasional bickerings, from which 
few married couples are totally exempt, not unfrequently 
prove, under the soothing influences of children, and the 
pleasures of the domestic meal, a renewal and confirmation 
of love ; but now, the sullen husband escapes to his still 
more sullen club ; he becomes embittered by feeding upon 
his own angry heart ; a reconciliation is rendered every day 
more difficult ; he begins to hate his home ; and his occa- 
sional absence is soon made habitual. Meanwhile, the 
children lose the benefit of the father's presence and ex- 
ample ; the father, whose loss is of still more mischievous 
import, is deprived of all the heart-hallowing influences of 
his offspring : and the neglected wife, thinking herself justi- 
fied in seeking from others that society which is denied to 
her by her husband, is exposed to temptations and dangers, 
from which she cannot always escape without contamination. 
To over-rate the conjugal and domestic misery now in actual 
progress, and all springing from this prolific source, would, 
I believe, be utterly impossible. How many married couples 
are there in the middling classes of society, the course of 
whose alienation and unhappiness might be traced out in the 
following order ? — 

" Husband. The club—a taste for French cooks, ex- 
pensive wines, and sensual luxuries — fastidious epicurism — 
a dislike of the plain meals which he finds at home, although 
the only ones adapted to his fortune and his station — con- 
firmed absenteeism and clubbism — hatred of the wife, who 
reproaches him for his selfish desertion — late hours — estrange- 
ment — profligacy — misery ! 

"Wife. Natural resentment of neglect — reproaches — 
altercations — diminution of conjugal affection — dissipation, 
as a resource against the dulness of home — expensive habits 



96 THE TIN TRUMPET, 

— embarrassment — total alienation of heart — dangerous con- 
nections — infidelity — misery ! 

"Of this account- current,. the items may vary, either in 
quality or sequence, but the alpha and omega will ever be 
the same. It will begin with the club, and end with misery." 

COLLEGE — an institution where young men are apt to 
learn everything but that which professes to be taught, 
although that which professes to be taught falls very short 
of what a modern gentleman ought to learn. As a type of 
the olden times, with all their unredeemed bigotry and pre- 
judice, our colleges are sadly out of keeping with the nine- 
teenth century. Their whole system is a specimen of the 
moral, as some of their structures are of the architectural 
gothic. Mark the opinion of no incompetent witness, since 
he was himself an Oxford collegian. 

" Were there no public institutions for education, no sys- 
tem, no science would be taught, for which there was not 
some demand, or which the circumstances of the time did not 
render it either necessary or convenient, or at least fashion- 
able to learn. A private teacher could never find his account 
in teaching either an exploded and antiquated system of a 
science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally 
believed to be a mere useless and pedantic heap of sophistry 
and nonsense. Such sciences, such systems, can subsist 
nowhere but in those incorporated societies for education, 
whose prosperity and revenue are, in a great measure, inde- 
pendent of their reputation, and altogether independent of 
their industry. Were there no public institutions for educa- 
tion, a gentleman, after going through, with application and 
abilities, the most complete course of education which the 
circumstances of the time were supposed to afford, could not 
come into the world completely ignorant of everything which 
is the common subject of conversation among gentlemen 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 97 

and men of the world." — Smith's Wealth of Nations, bk. v.. 
ch. 1, part 3, art. 2. 

If our colleges be still the seats of learning, it can only be, 
for the reason assigned in the old epigram — 

" No wonder that Oxford and Cambridge profound, 
In learning and science so greatly abound, 
Since some carry thither a little each day, 
And we meet with so few who bring any away." 

COMFORT.— "Ah !" said a John Bull to a Frenchman, 
" you have no such word as ' comfort ' in your language." — 
" I am glad of it," replied the Gaul ; — " you Englishmen are 
slaves to your comforts, in order that you may master them." 
There is some truth in this reproach. Perpetually toiling for 
money, with the professed object of being enabled to live 
comfortably, we sacrifice every comfort in the acquisition of 
a fortune, in order that when we have obtained it, we may 
have an additional discomfort from our anxiety to preserve 
or increase it. Thus do we " lose by seeking what we seek 
to find." On the other hand, we may find a comfort where 
we never looked for it : as, for instance, in a great affliction, 
the very magnitude of which renders us insensible to all 
smaller ones. Comfort, in our national acceptation of the 
word, has been stated to consist in those little luxuries and 
conveniences, the want of which makes an Englishman 
miserable, while their possession does not make him happy. 

COMMISERATION, Felonious.— There is a large class 
of idle people in this country, whose palled and jaded feelings 
can only be roused by some powerful excitement, whence 
they derive so much pleasure, that they immediately yearn 
towards the exciter, however undeserving of their pity. They 
like a murderer, because he relieves them for a moment from 
listlessness and ennui, and assists in committing another 

H 



98 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

murder, by helping them to kill their greatest enemy— time, 
The spurious, morbid, perverted sympathy which can only 
be elicited by criminals and malefactors, generally increasing 
with the enormity of their offences, and which I have stig- 
matised as the " felonious commiseration," may be compared 
to the diseased taste of certain epicures, who attach no value 
to a cheese while it is sound, but doat upon it when it be- 
comes corrupt, rotten, and rank with all sorts of offensive 
-abominations. 

COMMON-PLACE PEOPLE— are content to walk for 
life in the rut made by their predecessors, long after it has 
become so deep that they cannot see to the right or left. 
This keeps them in ignorance and darkness, but it saves 
them the trouble of thinking or acting for themselves. 

COMPETENCY — a financial horizon, which recedes as 
we advance. This word is by no means of indefinite meaning. 
It always signifies a little more than we possess. We are 
none of us wealthy enough in our own opinion, although we 
may be too much so in the judgment of others. Content is 
the best opulence, because it is the pleasantest, and the 
surest. The richest man is he who does not want that which 
is wanting to him ; the poorest is the miser, who wants that 
which he has. 

COMPLIMENT — a thing often paid by people who pay 
nothing else : — the counterfeit coin of those who substitute 
the form, fashion, and language of politeness, for its sub- 
stance and its feeling. Throwing compliments, like dice, is 
a game of hazard, at which the incautious player may get 
nothing but a sharp rap on the knuckles. He who sports 
compliments, unless he knows how to take a good aim, may 
miss his mark, and be wounded by the recoil of his own 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 99 

gun. Above all things, it is incumbent upon him to reflect, 
that even a blue-stocking will look black at him, if he attempt 
to flatter her mental, at the expense of her personal attractions. 
At a dinner-party in Paris, an ugly and dull German baron 7 
finding himself seated between the celebrated Madame de 
Stael, and Madame Recamier, the belle of the day, whis- 
pered to the former — " Am I not fortunate, to be thus placed 
between beauty and talent?" — "Not so very fortunate," re- 
plied the offended authoress, " since you possess neither one 
nor the other ! " 

"Helas, le ftauvre due cPAumottt /" exclaimed one of his 
female friends, — " who would have thought that he would, 
have been carried off so suddenly ? — On the very morning of 
his death, he had played as usual with his parroquet and his 
monkey ; — he had said, give me my snuff-box, brush this 
arm chair, let me see my new court dress ; — in fact, he 
possessed all his ideas and faculties with as much strength 
and vigour as ever he had done at the age of thirty." What 
an unintended satire in these tender compliments. Not more 
so, however, than in the naif remark of a lady, when a cen- 
sorious and conceited neighbour, vaunting of her good figure, 
boasted that herself and her sister had always been remark- 
able for the beauty of their backs. " That is the reason, I 
suppose, that your friends are always so glad to see them." 
A sarcasm may often wear the garb of a compliment, and be 
taken for one by the simple-witted. The Abbd Voisenon 
once made a complaint that he was unduly charged with the 
absurd sayings of others. " Monsieur? Abbe? replied D'Alem- 
bert, " on ne prete qrfaux riches." 

Not altogether unworthy of being recorded is the compli- 
ment attributed to a butcher at Whitby. — " This fillet of veal 
seems not quite so white as usual," said a fair lady, laying 
her hand upon it. — " Put on your glove, Ma'am, and you will 
think otherwise," was the complaisant reply. 

h 2 

10FC. 



ioc THE TIN TRUMPET j 

CONCEIT — taking ourselves at our own valuation, gene- 
rally about fifty per cent, above the fair worth. Minerva 
threw away the flute, when she found that it puffed up her 
own cheeks ; but if we cast away the flute now-a-days, it is 
only that we may take a larger instrument of puffing, by 
becoming our own trumpeters. Empty minds are the most 
prone to soar above their proper sphere, like paper kites, 
which are kept aloft by their own lightness ; while those that 
are better stored are prone to humility, like heavily laden 
vessels, of which we see the less the more richly and deeply 
they are freighted. The corn bends itself downward when 
its ears are filled, but when the heads of the conceited 
are filled with self-adulation, they only lift them up the 
higher. 

Perhaps it is a benevolent provision of Providence, that we 
should possess in fancy those good qualities which are with- 
held from us in reality ; for if we did not occasionally think 
well of ourselves, we should be more apt to think ill of 
others. It must be confessed, that the conceited and the 
vain have a light and pleasant duty to perform, since they 
have but one to please, and in that object they seldom fail. 
Self-love, moreover, is the only love not liable to the pangs of 
jealousy. Pity ! that a quick perception of our own deserts 
generally blinds us to the merits of others ; that we should 
see more than all the world in the former instance, and less 
in the latter ! In one respect, conceited people show a 
degree of discernment, for which they deserve credit, — they 
soon become tired of their own company. Especially for- 
tunate are they in another respect ; for while the really wise, 
witty, and beautiful, are subject to casualties of defect, age, 
and sickness, the imaginary possessor of those qualities wears 
a charmed life, and fears not the assaults of fate or time, since 
a nonentity is invulnerable. Even the really gifted, how- 
ever, may sometimes become conceited. Northcote, the 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 101 

artist, whose intellectual powers were equal to his profes- 
sional talent, and who thought it much easier for a man to 
be his superior than his equal, being once asked by Sir 
William Knighton what he thought of the Prince Regent, 
replied, " I am not acquainted with him." — " Why, his Royal 
Highness says he knows you." — " Know me ! — Pooh ! that's 
all his brag." 

CONGREGATION — a public assemblage in a spiritual 
theatre, where all the performers are professors, but where 
very few of the professors are performers. 

" Taking them one with another," said the Rev. S — S — , 
" I believe my congregation to be most exemplary observers 
of the religious ordinances ; for the poor keep all the fasts, 
and the rich all the feasts." This fortunate flock might be 
matched with the crew of the A frigate, whose com- 
mander, Capt. R — , told a friend that he had just left them 
the happiest set of fellows in the world. Knowing the 
captain's extreme severity, his friend expressed some sur- 
prise at this statement, and demanded an explanation. 
" Why," said the disciplinarian, " I have just had nineteen of 
the rascals flogged, and they are happy that it is over, while 
all the rest are happy that they have escaped." 

CONSCIENCE — something to swear by. Conscience 
being regulated by the opinion of the world, has no very 
determinate standard of morality. Among the ancient 
Greeks and Romans, suicide was a magnanimous virtue, 
with us it is a cowardly crime. The Spartans taught their 
children to steal ; we whip and imprison ours for the same 
act. No man's conscience stings him for killing a single 
adversary in a duel, or scores in war, because these deeds 
are in accordance with the usages of society ; but he may, 
nevertheless, be arraigned, perchance, for murder, at the bar 



102 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

of the Almighty. Terror of conscience, therefore, would 
seem to be the fear of infamy, detection, or punishment in 
this world, rather than in the next. Criminals, who volun- 
tarily surrender themselves to justice, and confess their mis- 
deeds, are, doubtless, driven to that act of desperation by their 
conscience ; but it is from a dread of Jack Ketch, and the 
intolerableness of suspense. They would rather be hanged 
once in reality than every day in imagination. Pass a law 
that shall legalize their offences, or let them be tried and 
acquitted, from some flaw in the indictment, and their minds 
will be wonderfully tranquillized. How much safer a guide 
and monitor would our conscience become, if we adapted it 
to the immutable laws of God, instead of the fluctuating 
opinions of man, and were penetrated with the great truth 
that, whatever may be our present feelings, there is an in- 
evitable ultimate connection between happiness and virtue, 
misery and vice. 

CONSERVATIVE— one who has evinced a good sense, 
that entitles him to our respect, by becoming ashamed of the 
word Tory. With the exception of the mere boroughmonger, 
whose sordid motives deserve no indulgence, every generous 
reformer will give credit to his conservative opponent for the 
same sincerity of feeling, and purity of purpose, that he him- 
self professes and claims. Invective and personality prove 
nothing on either side, but a lamentable want of good taste 
and good argument. There is one party to which all aspire 
to belong, and whose characteristics none can mistake — that 
of the Gentleman ; not limiting this all-embracing appel- 
lation to the vulgar distinctions of rank and external appear- 
ance, but to the innate gentleness and liberality, which a 
peasant or an artisan may possess in as eminent a degree as 
a peer or a prince. Let the reformer, whose victory is won, 
grace it by forbearance — let the conservative, whose further 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 103 

opposition is useless, disdain the guerilla warfare of faction. 
The former should now employ himself in realising the 
advantages he so confidently anticipated from his great 
measure ; the latter, in guarding against the dangers he not 
less positively prognosticated. Gladly holding out the right 
hand of fellowship to each other, both should unite in endea- 
vouring to accomplish their mutual object — the advancement, 
the glory, and the happiness of their common country. So 
shall old England, with improved institutions, renovated 
energies, and an united people, re-assert her proud prerogative 
of teaching the nations how to live. 

CONSOLATION for unsuccessful authors.— " Many 
works," says Chamfort, " succeed, because the mediocrity of 
the author's ideas exactly corresponds with the mediocrity of 
ideas on the part of the public." Writers who fail in hitting 
the present taste, are apt to appeal to posterity, which, even 
if it should ratify their fond anticipations, (a rare occurrence,) 
will only show that they have still failed, because they have 
gained an object which they did not seek, and missed that 
which they sought. Let him profess what he will, every man 
writes to be read by his contemporaries ; otherwise why does 
he publish ? It would be a poor compliment to a sportsman 
to say — " You have missed all the birds, at which you took 
aim, but you fire so well that your shot will be sure to hit 
something before they fall to the ground." He who professes 
to do without the living, and yet wants the suffrages of the 
unborn, stands little chance of obtaining his election, and is 
sure that he cannot enjoy it, even if he succeed. Few will 
possess such claims to celebrity as Kepler, the German 
astronomer ; and yet there was a sense of mortification, as 
well as an almost profane arrogance, when, on the failure of 
one of his works to excite attention, he exclaimed, " My book 
may well wait a hundred years for a reader, since God himself 



104 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

has been content to wait six thousand years for an observer 
like myself." 

CONTENT — a mental Will-o'-the-wisp, which all are 
seeking, but which few attain. And yet every one might 
succeed, if he would think more of what he has, and less of 
what he wants. Daily experience may convince us that those 
who possess what we covet, are not a jot more happy than 
ourselves : why then should we labour and toil in chasing 
disappointment ? How few feel gratitude for what they have, 
compared to those who pine for what they have not ! Ant 
Ccesar aut nullus is the prevalent motto : not to have every- 
thing, is to have nothing. Like the famous Duke of Buck- 
ingham, some are more impatient of successes, than others 
are of reverses ; by basking in the sunshine of fortune, they 
become sour, and turn to vinegar. 

" Let this plain truth those ingrates strike, 
Who still, though bless'd, new blessings crave, 

That we may all have what we like, 
Simply by liking what we have." 

Or, if this fail, let us call arithmetic to our aid, and learn 
content from comparing ourselves and our lot with the many 
who want what we possess, rather than with the few who 
possess what we want. 

CONTROVERSY.— What a blessing to the world if it 
had exemplified the dictum of Sir William Temple, that all 
such controversies as can never end, had much better never 
begin ! At the present moment, when the necessity of a 
Church reformation is so generally discussed, it may not be 
uninteresting to reprint the lines on the famous controversy 
between John Rainolds and one of his brothers, wherein each 
converted the other. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 105 

" In points of faith, some undetermin'd jars, 
Betwixt two brothers, kindled civil wars ; 
One for the Church's reformation stood, 
The other held no reformation good. 
The points propos'd, they traversed the field 
With equal strength ; so equally they yield. 
As each desir'd, his brother each subdues ; 
Yet such their faith, that each his faith does lose. 
Both joyed in being conquered, strange to say, 
And yet both mourn'd, because both won the day." 

As to religious controversy, we will set an example worthy 
of all imitation, by saying nothing about it, further than to 
refer the curious in such matters, to the tomb of Sir Henry 
Wotton, in the chapel at Eton, whereon is the following 
inscription — " Hie jacet hujus sentential primus auctor : — 
Disputandi pruritics Ecclesice scabies." " Here lies the first 
author of this sentence : — The itch of disputation is the scab 
of the Church" 

CONVERSATION, Rational— see Library, Solitude, 
anything but company. Despotic but civilized countries, such 
as France under the old monarchy, where the men having 
little or no share in the government, and being unembittered 
by party politics, threw their whole minds into social inter- 
course, are the best adapted for conversational excellence. In 
England we have too much business, and too much political 
acrimony to allow us either time or aptitude for the enjoy- 
ment of society in all its nonchalance, sprightliness and viva- 
city ; while even the narrow bounds left to us, are still further 
restricted by our pride, reserve, and exclusiveness. On these 
accounts English women are in general much, better conver- 
sationalists than the men. In many families, the daughters 
have more cultivated minds than the sons, and will discourse 
of literature and the arts, while their brothers can talk of 
little but dogs and guns, a horse-race, or a boxing-match. 



106 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

Even upon politics, when they will discuss them, women are 
more philosophical than men, because their passions and 
interests are not so deeply embarked. Not being educated 
for the business of life, they are more dispassionate, and are 
only the more agreeable for being ornamental instead of 
useful. 

How incalculably would the tone of conversation be im- 
proved, if it offered no exceptions to the example of Bishop 
Beveridge : " I resolve never to speak of a man's virtues to 
his face, nor of his faults behind his back." A golden rule ! 
the observation of which would at once banish flattery and 
defamation from the earth. Conversation stock being a joint 
and common property, every one should take a share in it ; 
and yet there may be societies in which silence will be our 
best contribution. When Isocrates, dining with the King of 
Cyprus, was asked why he did not mix in the discourse of 
the company, he replied, "What is seasonable I do not 
know, and what I know is not seasonable." 

A brilliant talker is not always liked by those whom he has 
most amused, for we are seldom pleased with those who have 
in any way made us feel our inferiority. " The happiest con- 
versation," says Dr. Johnson, " is that of which nothing is 
distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing im- 
pression." — " No one," says Dean Locker, "will ever shine in 
conversation, who thinks of saying fine things : to please, 
one must say many things indifferent, and many very bad." 
This last rule is rarely violated in society ! 

COQUETTE — a female general who builds her fame on 
her advances. A coquette may be compared to tinder, which 
lays itself out to catch sparks, but does not always succeed 
in lighting up a match. Men are perverse creatures ; they 
fly that which pursues them, and pursue that which flies 
them. Forwardness, therefore, on the part of a female makes 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 107 

them draw back, and backwardness draws them forward. 
There will always be this difference between a coquette and 
a woman of sense and modesty, that while one courts every 
man, every man will court the other. When the coquette 
settles into an old maid, it is not unusual to see her as staid 
and formal as she was previously versatile : — 

" Thus weathercocks which for a while, 

Have turned about with every blast, 
Grown old, and destitute of oil, 

Rust to a point, and fix at last." 

CORPORATION and TEST ACTS.— The obstinacy, the 
blindness, the fanatical fury with which the repeal of these 
obnoxious acts was opposed, from the days of James II. to 
our own ; the total oblivion into which their recent abrogation 
has already fallen ; and the consequent proofs of their abso- 
lute nullity, as affecting the security of the Church, forms the 
bitterest satire upon the ignorance and intolerance of those 
who so long and so fiercely opposed their repeal. 

COUNTERACTION— a balancing provision of nature, 
for the prevention of excess, whether in morals or mechanics. 
But for this salutary restraint, even our virtues would be 
pushed to a vicious extreme. How many men do we encounter 
in society whose praises of their friends, when speaking to 
their faces, would appear fulsome flattery, were it not qualified 
by their disparagement of the same friends behind their 
backs ! Others there are whose warm offers of assistance, 
to such as do not need their aid, would appear generous even 
to a fault, did we not invariably find that they are equally 
cold, shy, and cautious where there is any probability of their 
professions being accepted. People may run into excess 
with their vices, but their virtues, thanks to this wholesome 



io8 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

principle of counteraction, are seldom urged beyond the 
boundaries of prudence. 

COURAGE — the fear of being thought a coward. The 
reverence that withholds us from violating the laws of God 
or man, is not infrequently branded with the name of cow- 
ardice. The Spartans had a saying, that he who stood most 
in fear of the law, generally showed the least fear of an enemy. 
We may infer the truth of this dictum from the reverse of the 
proposition, for daily experience shows us that they who are 
the most daring in a bad cause, are often the most pusillani- 
mous in a good one. Bravery is a cheap and vulgar quality, 
of which the highest instances are frequently found in the 
lowest savages, and which is often still more conspicuous in 
the brute creation, than in the most intrepid of the human 
race. Equally signal were the courage and the candour of 
the man of Amiens, who being driven to the gates of his own 
city, cried out, " Come on, if you dare, cuckolds of Abbeville ; 
we are here four to one of you." 

COURT. — "La Cour" says La Bruyere, " ne rend pas 
content; mats elle empeche qu'on ne le soit ailleurs." If 
there be truth in this position, a luckless courtier must 
somewhat resemble the showman's amphibious animal — 
" who cannot live on the land, and dies in the water." 

COUSIN — a periodical bore from the country, who, be- 
cause you happen to have some of his blood, thinks he may 
inflict the whole of his body upon you during his stay in 
town. We do not mention his mind, because it is generally 
a nonentity. 

CREATION, Lord of the— an ephemeral insect, the 
slave, too often, of his own passions. If this magisterial 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 109 

worm contemplates a map of the world, he will find that 
nearly three-fifths of it are covered by the sea and polar ice, 
and appear consequently to have been made for the occupa- 
tion and accommodation of fishes, rather than of human 
beings ; while no small portion of the earth is in the pos- 
session of wild beasts and savages. If he considers his 
body, he will find it inferior, in some £f its most important 
functions, to many of the animals ; but if he look into his 
mind, he will instantly discover sufficient vindication for the 
proud title he has assumed. By the study of Geology, he 
can throw back his existence into the remote seras, long 
before the creation of man. History makes him contem- 
porary with all the celebrated nations of antiquity ; specula- 
tion carries his life forward into an illimitable futurity ; 
Astronomy enables him to develope the laws by which the 
universe is governed, and to penetrate, as it were, into the 
secrets of the Deity. Thus doth he conquer both time and 
space. The beautiful and majestic earth is his footstool, he 
walks between two eternities, God is everywhere round about 
Him, a beatific immortality is before him. Truly this august 
creature may justly term himself the Lord of the Creation. 

CREDULITY— an instinct of youth. "The simple be- 
lieveth every word, but the prudent man looketh well to his 
going." Prov. xiv. 15. Credulity diminishes as we gather 
wisdom by experience, and yet, even among the old and 
suspicious, it is probable that many falsehoods are believed, 
for a single truth that is disbelieved. The young having a 
constant tendency to welcome pleasant and repel disagree- 
able impressions, reject as long as they can the painful feel- 
ing of suspicion. Belief, like a young puppy, is born blind ; 
and must swallow whatever food is given to it ; when it can 
see, it caters for itself. Or it may be better compared to the 
block of marble, and Truth to the statue within it, at which 



no THE TIN TRUMPET; 

we can only arrive by perpetually cutting away the frag- 
ments that enclose and conceal it. As a good workman is 
known by the quantity of his chips, so may a penetrative 
mind by the rubbish and heaps of discarded credulity with 
which it is surrounded. Taking the whole world at the 
present moment, can it be said to believe a thousandth part 
of what it believed a Jhousand years ago ? 

CREED, Compulsory — an attempt to cast the minds of 
others in the same mould as our own, which is about as 
likely to be successful as if a similar experiment were applied 
to the body. Hear the opinion of St. Hilary upon this 
subject — " It is a thing equally deplorable and dangerous, 
that there are at present as many creeds as there are opinions 
among men. We make creeds arbitrarily, and explain them 
as arbitrarily. We can't be ignorant that, since the council 
of Nice, we have done nothing but make creeds. We make 
creeds every year, nay every morn : we repent of what we 
have done ; we defend those that repent ; we anathematize 
those we have defended ; we condemn the doctrine of others 
in ourselves, or our own in that of others ; and reciprocally 
tearing one another to pieces, we have been the cause of one 
another's ruin." — (Ad Constant) 

Creeds are doubly injurious in their operation ; they occa- 
sion a positive as well as a negative evil to the Church, by 
excluding the conscientious and upright, while they admit 
the subservient and unscrupulous. " Though some purposes 
of order and tranquillity," says Paley, " may be answered by 
the establishment of creeds and confessions, yet they are at 
all times attended with serious inconvenience : they check 
inquiry ; they violate liberty ; they ensnare the consciences 
of the clergy, by holding out temptations to prevarication." — 
Moral and Political Philosophy, bk. vi. ch. 10. 

The same writer notices another, and still more crying 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. iix 

evil to which they inevitably tend — " Creeds and confes- 
sions, however they may express the persuasion, or be accom- 
modated to the controversies or to the fears of the age in 
which they are composed, in process of time, and by reason 
of the changes which are wont to take place in the judgment 
of mankind upon religious subjects, they come at length to 
contradict the actual opinions of the Church, whose doctrines 
they profess to contain." — Ibid. bk. vi. ch. 10. So that these 
tyrannical and useless shackles of the mind actually promote 
perjury or equivocation in the pastor, while they obstruct the 
progress of knowledge and of Christianity among the flock ! 
— What more can be added to show the necessity for their 
abolition? 

CRITICISM — very often consists in measuring the learn- 
ing and the wisdom of others, either by our own ignorance, 
or by our little technical and pedantic partialities and preju- 
dices. Every one has heard of the mathematician who 
objected to Shakspeare, that his works proved nothing. 
Equally luminous was the remark of the lawyer, who happen- 
ing to catch the words — " a deed without a name," — uttered 
by the witches in Macbeth, repeated — "A deed without a 
name ! — why, 'tis void." In the same enlarged spirit is much 
of our criticism written ; but even this is better than the 
feeling of rancour and bitterness by which it is too often per- 
verted from its legitimate ends, and rendered subservient, 
by the most disingenuous acts, to the gratification of per- 
sonal pique, or party malevolence. As the devil can quote 
scripture for his purpose, so can the practised critic, by 
severing passages from their context, and placing them in 
a ridiculous or distorting light, make the most praiseworthy 
work appear to condemn itself. A book thus unfairly treated, 
may be compared to the laurel, of which there is honour in 
the leaves, but poison in the extract. 



iT2 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

Of much of our contemporary criticism, which consists 
rather in reviewing writers than writings, we may find a fair 
type in the following passage from a letter of the celebrated 
Waller: "The old blind schoolmaster, John Milton, hath 
published a tedious poem on the fall of man ; if its length be 
not considered as merit, it hath no other." 

Pepys, in his Memoirs, thus speaks of Hudibras — " When 
I came to read it, it is so silly an abuse of the Presbyter 
knight going to the wars, that I am ashamed of it ; and by 
and by, meeting at Mr. Townsend's at dinner, I sold it to 
Mr. Battersby for i&£ I" There are living critics who seem 
to have caught the mantle of these sapient judges. 

CRY, Conservative — an imitation of the cunning rogue 
who calls out " Pickpocket ! " — in order that, by diverting 
our attention to others, he may effect his own escape with 
the plunder he has made. This is a favourite device with 
corruptionists of all sorts. Whenever there is a cry that the 
State is in danger, we may be confident that it is about to be 
rendered more secure by some popular concession ; and 
when our ears are stunned by vociferations of the Church 
being in danger, we may safely suspect that it is about to be 
fortified by the removal of some act of intolerance, or the 
reform of some gross abuse. It is one of the most en- 
couraging signs of the times, that this interested clamour, 
once so influential, is now little better than a brutum 
fulmen. 

CUNNING — the simplicity by which knaves generally 
outwit themselves. As the ignorant and unsuspicious are 
often protected by their singleness of purpose, so are the 
crafty and designing not unfrequently foiled by their dupli- 
city. It is not every rogue that, like a bowl, can gain his 
object the better by deviating from the straight line ; al- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 113 

though there is one straight line to which the rogue's devia- 
tions are very apt to conduct him. 

CURIOSITY — looking over other people's affairs, and 
overlooking our own. If a spy may be executed by the laws 
of war, surely a Paul Pry may be kicked or horsewhipped by 
the laws of society. There is no peace with such a man, un- 
less you declare war against him. Xenocrates, reprehend- 
ing curiosity, said, " It was as rude to intrude into another 
man's house with your eyes, as with your feet." 

CUSTOM — a reason for irrational things, and an excuse 
for inexcusable ones. While we exercise our own judgment 
in all matters of importance, we should do well, in trifles, to 
conform, without inquiry, to existing modes. " A froward 
retention of custom," says Lord Bacon, " is as turbulent a 
thing as an innovation ; " a dictum which we recommend to 
the special consideration of our Conservatives. Most shrewd 
and discreet was the advice of the old lady, who, on her first 
settlement at Constantinople, advised her children to con- 
form strictly to the manners and customs of the inhabitants, 
adding — " When people are in Turkey, they should live a& 
turkeys live." Perhaps the power of custom was never 
more strongly exemplified than in the case of Ariosto's hero, 
who was so habituated to fighting, that he went on combat- 
ing, even after he was dead. 

' * II pover uomo che non se n'era accorto, 
Andava combattendo— ed era morto." 



ji 4 THE TIN TRUMPET; 



AY AND MARTIN— falsifiers of prophecy. 
Thirty years ago, our wiseacres predicted, that 
when all could read and write, we should find 
none to black our shoes. The day of evil has 
arrived : everybody can read and write ; our 
shoes are not only better blacked than ever, but they are 
polished by comparatively polished people; our blacking- 
makers acquire fortunes, and build palaces, thus giving en- 
couragement to other arts than the black one ; and it is even 
reported, that a London firm keeps a regular bard upon the 
establishment, to write poetical puffs. 

Nevertheless, we have heard of a saucy knight of the 
shoulder-knot, who, on applying to the irascible Colonel 

B , while he was at his desk, for the vacant situation of 

valet, asked permission to state beforehand that he never 
touched a boot, and inquired who was to do the black work? 
— " That I do myself," cried the Colonel, throwing the ink- 
stand in his face ; — " and as you never touch a boot, I must 
make my boot touch you," — with which words he kicked 
him down stairs. 

DEATH— the sleeping partner of life — a change of exist- 
ence. This great and insolvable mystery, which we are 
ever flying from and running towards, is by no means the 
QofSephu (poPepwrarov that our fancy somtimes represents it. 
To live is, in fact, to die, and to die is to live ; for the body 
is the grave of the soul, and death the gate of life. If to 
expire be an evil, it is only a negative one, which might well 
be endured, since it terminates those that are positive. If it 
be a rod, it is like that of Aaron, which blossoms and bears 
the fruit of peace. Why should a long, be less pleasant 
than a short sleep? Post-natal, cannot differ from ante- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 115 

natal unconsciousness : we were dead before we lived ; 
ceasing to exist is only returning to our former state, speak- 
ing always with reference to this world. 

It is what we are flying from, rather than to, that often 
makes us unwilling to sustain so " violent a wrench from all 
we love ;" an argument which one of the fathers adduces as 
an excuse for the bitterness of the world. " Amarus est mun- 
dus, et diligitur. Puta, si dulcis esset, qualiter amareturP 
A French monarch being told, in his last moments, that he 
would soon be a saint in heaven, exclaimed, sorrowfully, " I 
should have been quite content to remain King of France 
and Navarre." 

"Ah, David, David !" said Johnson to Garrick, who had 
been showing him his house and grounds at Hampton, — 
" these are the things that make a death-bed terrible !" Had 
he been reading in the Alceste — 



Ce sont les douceurs de la vie, 
Qui font les horreurs du trepas; "- 



or Horace's 



' ' Linquenda tellus, et domus, et placens 
Uxor, neque harum quas colis arborum, 
Te, prseter invisos cupressos, 

Ulla brevem dominum sequetur ! " 

Montaigne makes Nature address man in the following 
words : — " Sortez de ce mo?ide comme vous y Hes entrej le 
mime passage que vous avez faie de la mort a la vie, sans 
passion et sans fray eur, refaites-la de la vie a la ?nort. Voire 
mort est une des pieces de Vordre de Vunivers ; une piece 

de la vie du monde. Si vous n'aviez la mort, vous me 

mauderiez sans cesse de vous en avoir fir ive. n 

" O Death, I bless thee !" exclaims Le Mercier, in a tone 
of bitter eloquence — " Thou shakest tyrants ; thou reducest 
to dust those whom the world had flattered, and who made 

1 2 



n6 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

mankind their footstool. They fall, and we breathe more 
freely. Hope of the unfortunate! terror of the wicked! 
stretch out thine arm, and strike the persecutors of the earth. 
And ye voracious worms ! my friends and my avengers ! 
hasten in crowds to the feast of their crime-fattened car- 
casses !" 

He that would die sooner or later than he ought, is equally 
a coward. Csesar, when he heard of any sudden death, used 
to wish — <( szbi et snis euthanasiam similem? and he was 
right ; for the aspect, the threats, and the bark, of death, are 
worse than his bite. 

The author of the following stanzas seems to have been of 
Caesar's opinion : — 

" Oh ! come not, thou skeleton king, in the garb 
Of a lingering sickness to summon thy prize, 

To hover above me with menacing barb, 
And dangle its ominous glare in mine eyes — 

For see ! I have open'd my breast, that thy dart 

May be steadily aim'd at a resolute heart. 

" Be the grass of the meadow my pillow of death, 

And the friends that surround it — the sea and the sky ; 
May the angel- wing'd breezes receive my last breath, 

To be borne to its heavenly giver on high ! — 
Be the spot where I fall unprofaned by a tear, 
Save the dews of the night that descend on my bier." 

Death is the only subject upon which everybody speaks 
and writes, without a possibility of having experienced what 
he undertakes to discuss. Contempt of it is seldom real ; it is 
but the love of glory : many, besides Mirabeau, have drama- 
tized their own exits. Most consolatory is the reflection, that if 
this great consummation puts an end to the enjoyments of 
some, it terminates the sufferings of all. Death is a silent, 
peaceful genius, who rocks our second childhood to sleep in 
the cradle of the coffin. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 117 

It is the proud prerogative of noble natures, that they 
retain their influence after death. The lamps which guided 
us on earth, become stars to light us from above, and the 
beneficent may still claim our aspirations as the blessed ; — a 
species of apotheosis equally honourable to the living and the 
dead. 

DEBT, National — mortgaging the property of our 
posterity, that we may be better enabled to destroy our con- 
temporaries. It may be questionable, whether any commu- 
nity has a moral right to discount the future, for the purpose 
of tormenting or corrupting the present ; to exhaust the 
resources of many ages, that it may render the pugnacity 
and ambition of its own more extensively mischievous. Is 
there no limit to this right, or, rather, wrong ; no check, but 
the frightful one of a national bankruptcy ? If parliament, 
for instance, for the purpose of raising a large loan, were to 
sell all our unborn children into slavery, would our offspring 
be legally bound to submit to bondage ? and, if not, are there 
not limits to financial bondage? To a certain extent, the 
latter includes the former ; for the person is often fettered 
where the purse is crippled and straitened. 

Well is it that these questions should be discussed, for the 
universal discontinuance of the funding system would be an • 
incalculable blessing to the world, by cutting the sinews of 
war. While it lasts, however, let its engagements be sacredly 
observed. 

The injurious persons who maintain that the weight of our 
debt gives solidity to our political institutions, and that its 
increase only adds to our security, remind one of the sapient 
Justice, who, finding the ice begin to crack, as he was cros- 
sing the frozen Thames, cried out to his servant — "John, 
there seems to be some danger here ; so, for our mutual 
safety, do pry thee help me over on your back." 



ii8 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

Speaking of the difference between laying out money in 
land, or investing it in the funds, it was said by Soame 
Jenyns, that one was principal without interest, and the other 
interest without principal. 

DECEPTION — a principal ingredient in happiness. 
Did we possess the spear of Ithuriel, or could we realise the 
suggestion of Momus, we should gain a fearful loss. An 
enemy to education, when told that the schoolmaster was 
abroad, replied, " I am very glad to hear it ; I hope he will 
remain there !" A friend to his species will utter a similar 
aspiration respecting Truth, if he believe the popular saying, 
that she lies at the bottom of a well. Instead of regretting 
that we are sometimes deceived, we should rather lament 
that we are ever undeceived. But, alas ! as Seneca says — 
" Nemo omnes, neminem omnes fefellerunt? — None deceives 
all, and none have all deceived. 

DEDICATION — inscribing to an individual that, which, 
if it be worth encouragement, will find its best patron in the 
public. Kopp, the German, prefixed the following short, but 
pithy dedication to his Palasographia Critica : — " Posteris 
hoc ofius, ab cequalium mconim studiis forte alienum, do, 
dico\atque dedico." Upon these occasions, one cannot help 
sharing the apprehension expressed by Voltaire, that the 
work may never reach the party to whom it is addressed ! 

DESCRIPTION.— A living critic has laid it down as a 
rule, that no author can succeed in describing what he has 
not seen, forgetting that Dante was never in hell, nor Milton 
in Paradise ; and that it is the highest praise of Shakspeare 
to have " exhausted worlds, and then imagined new." In- 
ventive writers evince their talent by portraying the invisible 
and non-existent, snatching a grace, not only beyond the 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 119 

reach of art, but beyond the reach of nature. Little right 
had the critic in question to expect imagination in others, for 
it is manifest that he possessed none himself. 

DESPONDENCY— ingratitude to heaven, as cheerful- 
ness is the best and most acceptable piety. H — , who is 
bilious and hypochondriacal, may be termed a constitutional 
grumbler. " If my future life," he one day exclaimed, " be 
only an executed copy, an unheard echo, an invisible reflec- 
tion of the past, I wish it not to be prolonged. Running 
after happiness, is only chasing the horizon, or seeking the 
philosopher's stone, and I am already 

" ' Tired of toiling for the chymic gold, 

That fools us young, and beggars us when old.' " 

D — does not possess the talents of H — , but his bile is 
never deranged ; he has a fortunate organisation ; he is a 
happier, and, so far, a wiser man. Like the bee, which ex- 
tracts honey even from bitter flowers, he can derive cheerful- 
ness from the most unpromising elements. Are his com- 
panions gloomy, disagreeable, silent, — he calls forth his own 
stores of pleasantness, and if he do not succeed in enlivening 
others, which is but rarely the case, — for good humour and good 
spirits are often catching, — he finds cause for gratitude that 
he himself possesses a constant aptitude for the enjoyment of 
existence, while so many are enacting the part of Terence's 
Heautontimorumenos. Is the scenery picturesque, it exalts 
his admiration into rapture : is it flat and commonplace, it 
still possesses an interest for one who feels that every spot of 
ground, however unattractive, conduces to some benevolent 
purpose of utility or enjoyment. Does the sun shine, its 
jocund beams heighten his natural exhilaration, by lifting 
up his thoughts to the great Source of all light, solar, as 
well as intellectual. Is it a rainy day, he sees the out- 



120 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

stretched hand of the same beneficent Deity, guiding the 
clouds over the earth, that they may dispense fertility and 
gladness to the creatures whom He has called into existence, 
and around whom He is for ever scattering blessings. I 
know not how H — may feel upon the occasion, but, for my 
own part, I would gladly give up whatever I may possess of 
talent and learning — (deem me not overweening, gentle 
reader ! for, perchance, I may reckon them as Indians do 
rupees — by the lack) — I would give them all up, I repeat, to 
possess the happy disposition of D — . 

DESPOTISM — allowing a whole people no other means 
of escape from oppression, than by the assassination of their 
oppressor. If tyranny be an unjustifiable liberticide, may 
not tyrannicide be termed justifiable homicide ? We moot 
the point, without presuming to decide it. Despotism, never- 
theless, has its advantages in a barbarous and ignorant 
country, where its evils are little felt. Peter the Great, of 
Russia, could hardly have accomplished so much in civilizing 
his subjects, if he had not been an absolute monarch. Even 
among a comparatively enlightened people, such is the force 
of habit, that a long-established despotism may continue 
unabated, without being resented by its victims. For two 
centuries, at least, the French presented the anomaly of a 
polished, intellectual, enslaved people. Nay, they could 
record their degradation, and seem to glory in it. The terror 
of Europe, named par excellence, the Grand Monaj'que, was 
the puppet of an old woman, the widow of Scarron, the buf- 
foon, whom he had clandestinely married. " The State is 
myself," said Louis XIV. ; an ebullition of despotism imitated 
in our own times by Napoleon ; so besotting is the cup of 
unlimited power. In its self-punishing operation, it generally 
weakens the mind, until the enslaver becomes a slave, either 
to a mistress or a favourite, if not to both. 



OR, HEADS AND IaLES. 121 

There is a natural connection between despotic government 
and depraved manners, — free governments and comparative 
purity. Free institutions not only open to the rich higher 
and more worthy objects of ambition than the gratification 
of the senses, but operate as a wholesome restraint upon the 
upper ranks, by making them dependent, in some degree, 
on the good opinion of the lower classes. Where character 
is power, we have the best security for general morality. 

Perhaps the worst thing ever uttered by Madame de Stael, 
was her speech to the Emperor of Russia : — " Sir, your cha- 
racter is a constitution for your country, and your conscience 
its guarantee ; " nor is there a better kingly speech upon 
record than his reply, — " Even if it were so, I should never 
be anything more than a lucky accident." 

DESTINY — the scapegoat which we make responsible 
for all our crimes and follies ; a necessity which we set 
down for invincible, when we have no wish to strive 
against it. 

DIET — the edibles and potables that we turn into blood 
and bone — the matter that we metamorphose into mind. 
— " Sir," said Bentley to one of his pupils, who had a pre- 
dilection for malt liquor — " if you drink ale you will think 
ale ; " and there was more truth in the averment than might 
at first sight be imagined, for body and mind must assimi- 
late, to a certain extent, with that which sustains them. 
Look at the difference of disposition between the carnivorous 
and graminivorous animals : the latter, who seem to be 
nature's unweaned favourites, are peaceful as the bosom 
upon which they browse ; the former, doomed to be con- 
stantly tearing one another, and to live by blood and 
slaughter, are constitutionally savage and ferocious. Varieties 
of temperament in animals will often be found to have re- 



122 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

ference to the different food in which each race delights, 
and it is by no means improbable that the national character 
of human societies may be modified by their favourite diet. 
The taste of each, taking that word in its most extended 
acceptation, may be traceable to the palate. The supple- 
ness and levity of the Italian may be derived from maccaroni 
and vermicelli ; Dutch phlegm and obstinacy, from flat-fish, 
water-zootje and schiedam; German acerbity, mysticism and 
melancholy, from sour-krout, sausages, and vin de grave; 
the insubordination of the Irish peelers and repealers, from 
potatoes; French levity and vivacity, from ragouts and 
champagne ; and the solid but somewhat crude and uncivi- 
lized character of John Bull, from his feeding upon huge 
joints of underdone beef. 

Potables have a more immediate effect upon the formation 
of character than Edibles, because we like them better, and 
therefore sympathise with them more intimately. In vino 
Veritas, saith the proverb : intoxication is thought to draw 
forth the real character ; but this is a mistake ; it creates 
instead of developing. Ebriety varies not with the man, 
but with the liquor. That of ardent spirits is fierce, mad- 
dening, and pugnacious ; of strong beer, stupifying and 
somniferous ; of port and heady wines, fond, maudlin, hic- 
coughing, and heavy; of champagne, gay, noisy, vivacious, 
shrieking, and saltatory. I have heard an old naval captain 
declare that, during the late war, a complete change was 
produced in the manners of the petty officers, by Sir George 
Rose's regulation, which substituted duty-free wines for their 
previous allowance of new rum and grog. When they had 
indulged a little too freely in the latter, (no very unusual 
occurrence,) strife, blackguardism, and outrage too often 
ensued ; a similar excess in wine evaporated in laughter and 
hugging. "Besides, Sir," added my informant, "when we 
were drinking our wine, like gentlemen, we felt it incumbent 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 123 

upon us to behave accordingly." Could anything more 
effectually confirm the doctrine of Bentley? Perhaps the 
notion was first suggested by his classical studies, and a 
perusal of the speech wherein Silenus tells the Cyclop that 
if he eats the tongue of Ulysses, he will acquire all his 
eloquence. 

DILEMMA for the doctors. — Complaint having lately 
been made in a Yorkshire hospital, that an old Hibernian 
would not submit to the prescribed remedies, one of the 
committee proceeded to expostulate with him, when he 
defended himself by exclaiming — " Sure, your honour, wasn't 
it a blister they wanted to put upon my back ? and I only 
tould 'em it was althegither impossible, for I've such a mighty 
dislike to them blisters, that put 'em where you will, they are 
sure to go agin my stomach." 

DILEMMA, Logical — a verbal check-mate. Aristotle 
wishing to refute the opinion of Protagoras, who maintained 
that there was nothing true in the world, argued thus : — 
" Your proposition is either true or false ; if it is false we 
are not, of course, bound to believe it : if it is true, there is 
such a thing as truth in the world, and consequently your 
proposition is false." These clinches were once in great 
favour with the sophists and logicians, but they were never 
worth the pains bestowed upon them, and have deservedly 
fallen into oblivion. The puzzling instance given in John- 
son's Dictionary under the word Dilemma, is recorded by 
Apuleius, as well as by Aulus Gallius in his Attic Nights. 
Our special pleading is the last remnant of these verbal 
quibbles, and the sooner it is exploded the better. The age 
of words is passing away, as well as the impostures and 
delusions to which they gave a species of sanction. In- 
justice, delay, and robbery will no longer be called law; 



i2 4 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

tithes and bishoprics, Christianity; rotten boroughs, repre- 
sentation; negro slavery, a mild and happy servitude; or 
public wrongs, private rights. In exploding these verbal 
frauds it should be well understood that they may be still 
practised, if we can reduce the great enemy of mankind to 
a nonplus, in imitation of the wily friar, who sold his soul 
to him upon condition that all his debts should be paid. 
Money was supplied in abundance, until he was extricated 
from his difficulties ; but when Satan came to claim the soul 
that was due to him, the friar answered, "Begone, thou 
swindler ! If I owe thee anything, I am not yet out of debt, 
and if I do not owe thee anything, why dost thou trouble 
me?" 

Shrewd and quickwitted was the reply of the miser, 
who on being requested by a dervish to grant him a 
favour, said, " On one condition I will do whatever you 
require." — "What is that?" — "Never to ask me for any 
thing." 

DINNER — a meal taken at supper time; formerly con- 
sidered a means of enjoying society, and therefore moderate 
in expense, and frequent in occurrence ; now given to display 
yourself, not to gratify your friends ; and inhospitably rare, 
because it is foolishly extravagant. 

John Bulwer, a quaint writer of the seventeenth century, 
especially recommends the following three dinner rules : — 
Stridor denlium — Altum silent mm — Rumor gentium j which 
has been humorously translated, "Work for the jaws — A 
silent pause — Frequent Ha — has ! " 

DISCIPLINE, Military— that subordination which is 
maintained upon the continent by the hope of distinction, in 
England by the fear of the cat-o'-nine-tails. Nothing is so 
reluctantly abandoned by despots, whether kings, peda- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 125 

gogues, officers, or magistrates, as any oppressive cruelty, 
which they imagine to be connected with the maintenance 
of their authority. A tyrant not only gratifies his malignity, 
but saves all trouble of argument or proper management, 
by the use of the whip, which may account for the disgrace- 
ful floggings still so prevalent in our schools, army and navy. 
This remnant of a barbarous age must soon pass away, and 
if our flogging disciplinarians would pass away at the same 
time, we should all be gainers by their loss. The cat-o'-nine- 
tails must have as many lives as tails, or it never could have 
lasted so long. 

DISCONTENT — being unhappy at the non-possession 
of that, of which the possession would not make us happy. 
Whence comes it that most men are satisfied with their 
country, to whatever sufferings its climate may expose them, 
while few or none are satisfied with their lot ? In the former 
instance, a man is on a par with his neighbours; in the 
latter, the mass being necessarily inferior to the few, pride 
makes them imagine that they are all too low, because they 
are not all at the top. 

To those who repine at the humbleness of their lot, with- 
out knowing to what eventual distinctions they may be 
destined, we recommend a perusal of the apologue with 
which Addison concludes one of his moral essays. A drop 
of water falling from the clouds into the ocean, became dis- 
contented with its insignificance, and complained that in 
the loss of its identity, it was in fact annihilated. In the 
midst of these murmurs, it was swallowed by an oyster, 
became converted, in process of time, into a gem, and finally 
constituted that celebrated pearl which adorns the top of the 
Persian diadem. 

DISCOVERY— differs from invention. The former may 



X26 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

be accidental, and only makes known that which had pre- 
viously existed ; the latter implies creation, or, at least, a new 
combination of old materials. 

To surrender the fair honour of any discovery, by naming 
it after the reigning monarch, is an absurd act of sycophancy* 
which the world has too much good sense to confirm. No 
family ever deserved better of literature and science than the 
Medici ; and yet the name of the Medician stars, assigned 
by Galileo to the satellites of Jupiter, never travelled beyond 
the confines of Tuscany, and was quickly dropped even in 
that country. At a later date, when the planet Ceres was 
discovered by Piazzi, it received the royal cognomen of 
Ferdinandea, an addition never recognised by Europe, and 
now forgotten everywhere. Botanists have very properly 
bestowed their own names, or those of their friends, upon 
the new or exotic plants which they have discovered or im- 
ported ; nor is it easy to conceive a more pleasing immor- 
tality than to descend to posterity, enshrined in the petals of 
a flower, like Hyacinthus, or the supposed child-deity of 
India. Sir Anthony Ashley, who first planted them in this 
country, has a cabbage sculptured at his feet upon his 
monument; a much more honourable trophy than all the 
herald's mummery, or the emblems of military prowess. A 
potatoe plant would have afforded the noblest crest for Sir 
Walter Raleigh, were it not deemed more honourable to 
destroy our fellow-creatures in war, than to minister to their 
gratification and support in peace. 

DISEASE, A new and fatal. — During the prevalence 
of the cholera in Ireland, a soldier hurrying into the mess- 
room, told his commanding officer that his brother had been 
carried off two days ago by a fatal malady, expressing his 
apprehensions that the whole regiment would be exposed to a 
similar danger in the course of the following week. "Good 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 127 

heavens ! " ejaculated the officer, " what then did he die of ? " 
" Why, your honour, he died of a Tuesday." 

DISSENT. — When upon honest conviction, a man rejects 
the faith in which he has been educated, he at least affords a 
proof that he has inquired into its truth, which is by no 
means the case with nine-tenths of the religious world, who 
take up their father's creed, like his name, as a mere matter of 
course. " He who has inquired, and come to a wrong con- 
clusion," says the pious Locke, " is in a more gracious state, 
in the sight of heaven, than he who is in the right faith, not 
having inquired at all ! " 

DISSENTER — one who refuses the communion of the 
English Church, under the fantastical notion that Christianity 
may exist without a state religion, an enormously endowed 
priestly nobility, wealthy spiritual sinecures, pluralities and 
non-residence, overpaid drones, hunger-pinched workers, 
and all the other advantages that so happily characterise our 
established Church. Really these non-conformists are the 
most unreasonable people upon earth ! Who but a captious 
puritan would, for such trifling objections as these, undertake 
the burthen of supporting two churches, shut himself out 
from all the tempting flesh-pots of Egypt, from benefices, 
dignities, rich revenues, college education, professorships, 
and the innumerable fat things that may be scrambled for 
within the golden pale of episcopacy ? For such a perverse 
self-denial there is but one way of accounting ; the man 

who practises it must be neither more nor less than 

conscientious ! 

Causes quite independent of discipline or doctrine must 
furnish a continual increase to the Dissenters. " In an in- 
tellectual pursuit of the highest order, there is a rivalry 
between two classes, one feeling itself dependent for success 



128 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

upon talents, zeal, piety, perseverance, and good conduct ; 
the other being independent of all these stimulants, if they 
choose to disregard them, and supported in their office by the 
force of law, by nomination of patrons, by succession, by 
simonaiacal or allowed purchase, by any power or preference, 
in short, except that of their flocks. In such a contest for 
opinion and favour, putting differences of doctrine out of 
view, there can be little doubt which must ultimately prevail. 
The law will uphold the Church, and the people will uphold 
the chapels, until they become tired of supporting both, when 
they will determine on paying that clergyman alone, by whose 
services they benefit." To this consummation have the Irish 
dissenters already been driven by spiritual oppression ; and 
as their English brethren are in a precisely similar predica- 
ment, it is not difficult to foresee that they will, ere long, do 
themselves the same justice. A plethora of dignities and 
wealth, combined with an atrophy of merits and followers, 
can never be symptoms of longevity in any Church, however 
firmly it may seem to be established. 

DISTINCTION— with a difference.—" I have no objec- 
tion," said a leveller, " that the ranks below me should be 
preserved just as they are now, but I wish to have none above 
me ; and that is my notion of a fair and perfect equality." 

An instance of the distinction without a difference was 
offered by the Irishman who, having legs of different sizes, 
ordered his boots to be made accordingly. His directions 
were obeyed ; but, as he tried the smallest boot on his largest 
leg, he exclaimed, petulantly, " Confound the fellow ! I 
ordered him to make one larger than the other ; and, instead 
of that, he has made one smaller than the other." 

DISTINCTIONS.— It is idle to talk of the abolition of 
distinctions, for Nature herself has created them. A great 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. ic 9 

and happy change, however, is taking place in our estimate 
of these honours. Every day adds to our reverence of m- 
trinsic, and diminishes our respect for ^.rtrinsic superiority. 
Patents of nobility, signed by the hand of God, are rising in 
general esteem, while those merely signed by the hand of a 
king are declining. Hereditary distinctions, whether of an 
exalting or degrading aspect, generally deteriorate their 
objects. It was once questioned, whether a villein, or serf, 
could enter heaven, and the very doubt rendered him unfit 
for it, just as the certainty of succeeding to honours often 
disqualifies their inheritor from wearing them becomingly. 

DISTRESS — even when positive or superlative, is still 
only comparative. " Such is the pressure of the times in 
our town," said a Birmingham manufacturer to his agent in 
London, " that we have good workmen who will get up the 
inside of a watch for eighteen shillings." — " Pooh ! that is 
nothing, compared to London," replied his friend ; — " we have 
boys here who will get up the inside of a chimney for 
sixpence ! " 

DIVINITY. — If the real divinity within our souls were not 
more pure and consoling than the false one which fanatics 
create, how deplorable would be the lot of human nature ! 
Happily, we cannot altogether get rid of the internal God, 
even by worshipping an external daemon. The mercy of the 
Heavenly Father is indefeasible; we may desert Him, but He 
will not utterly desert us. 

DRAM — a small quantity taken in large quantities by 
those who have few grains of sobriety, and no scruples of 
conscience. Horace Walpole records, that when one of his 
contemporaries died, in consequence, as it was currently said, 
of an over-addiction to brandy, the escutcheon affixed to the 

K 



i 3 o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

house of the deceased exhibited the common motto of u Mors 
jantia vitcej " upon which a wag observed — " Surely there 
has been a mistake in this inscription : it should have been 
1 Mors aqua vitoe. } " 

DRAMA, Modern — every sort of drama, except tragedy 
and comedy ; — such as melo-drama, hippo-drama, &c. 

DRAWING. — This most moral of all accomplishments, as 
Goethe terms it, is, at the same time, the most delightful ; 
almost endowing its possessor with an additional sense. A 
landscape is the silent voice of nature, speaking in forms and 
colours ; and the artist who can reduce these vocal visions to 
painted writing, has a companionship with the outward world, 
an enjoyment of its beauties, and a consequent sweetness in 
his communion with its great Creator, of the most hallowing 
and enviable description. He who can thus read the face of 
nature, or listen to her inaudible effusions, may indeed be 
said to find 

" Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

DREAMS — the invisible visions to which we are awake 
in our sleep ; the life of death ; the sights seen by the blind ; 
the sounds heard by the deaf ; the language of the dumb ; 
the sensations of the insensible ; a mystery which may 
afford us some vague notion of the undeveloped powers of 
the human mind, waiting, perhaps, the longer sleep of death, 
before they receive a full expansion. Objects thus presented 
to us can only be a wild combination, we are told, of those 
with which we have been previously conversant ; but in these 
revelations, there seems to be an occasional apocalypse of 
another world, or, at least, a different state of being from our 
present existence. What are the prevalent dreams of persons 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 131 

born blind? This subject has not excited inquiry, but it 
seems of a nature to deserve it, as it might lead to some very- 
curious results. Are forms and figures presented to them, 
either animate or inanimate, and if so, do they bear any 
resemblance to their originals ? Everything thus flitting 
before the mind's eye must be a creation, not a recollection, 
to him who can only have gathered vague notions of form 
from the touch, and can have no idea of colour. The dreams 
of maniacs, could they be detailed, would supply matter for 
not less interesting speculation. We may imagine them to 
embody forth all that is gorgeous, magnificent, rapturous, and 
paradisaical ; or to evoke the most hideous and terrific 
phantasmagoria, according to the different moods of their 
madness. Somnambulism, which may be termed an inter- 
mediate affection between dreaming and insanity, would also 
present many mental diagnostics, of the most curious 
character, could we " observingly distil them out." 

It has been asserted by medical writers, who have atten- 
tively considered the subject, that our senses and organs 
sink to sleep in the following succession : — 1st, the sense of 
sight ; 2nd, the taste ; 3rd, the smell ; 4th, the hearing ; 5th, 
the touch. The powers of the mind may, in the meantime, 
be inert, active, or deranged, according to circumstances ; 
but they are never altogether coherent. The two principal 
theories of dreams suppose them to originate wholly in direct 
impressions on the senses during sleep ; or to be ascribable 
to the supremacy of the mind, which, being unfettered by 
objects of sense, takes a wider range. According to this 
latter supposition, how inconceivably eccentric and illimitable 
may be its flight, when it is released from its earthly tegu- 
ment, and revels in the boundless wilds of imagination, as a 
liberated balloon soars into the invisible empyreum ! 

To illustrate the total absence of judgment in all these 
phantasms, Dr. Johnson used to relate the following dream. 



132 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

He imagined himself to be engaged in a contest of wit, 
before a large literary party, with an adversary whose supe- 
rior talents compelled him to retreatj filled with shame and 
mortification. " Had my judgment," argued the Doctor, 
" been as clear and active as my other mental powers, I 
should have recollected that my own head had furnished all 
the repartees of my supposed antagonist, and that I could 
not fail to be the victor, however the battle might ter- 
minate." 

An exceedingly corpulent man, who had suffered much 
from the intense heat of summer, dreamt, one sultry night, 
that, for the sake of cooling himself, he got out of his flesh, 
and sate in his skeleton, suffering the air to blow through his 
ribs ; a mode of refrigeration which he found so delicious, 
that on awaking he could almost have cried, like Caliban, to 
fall asleep again. 

DRESS — external gentility, frequently used to disguise 
internal vulgarity. Wise men will neither be the first to 
adopt a new fashion, nor the last to abandon an old one ; for 
an affectation of singularity is only the desire to set, instead 
of following, the mode. Eccentricity of appearance is the 
contemptible ambition of being personally known to those 
who do not know you by name. We may hold it slavish to 
dress according to the judgment of fools, and the caprice of 
coxcombs ; but are not we ourselves both, when we are 
singular in our attire ? Mean indeed, though, doubtless, 
very just, must be the self-opinion of that man, who can 
only hope to achieve distinction by the cut of his garments. 
The proverb tells us, to cut our coat according to our 
cloth ; but we are nowhere enjoined to cut out a character 
by a coat. 

Malvezzi says — " i vestimenti negli animali sono molto 
securi scgni delta lo?-o natiwa; negli uomini del lor cervello" 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 133 

This may be illustrated by rags as well as finery. Socrates 
told Antisthenes, who affected shabbiness, that he saw his 
pride through the holes in his coat ; and the gay attire of 
the coxcomb only serves to prOve the more clearly, that he is 
" a leaden rapier in a golden sheath " — a cork leg in a silken 
stocking. 

DRUNKENNESS — a beastly, detestable, and often 
punished vice, in the ignorant lower orders, whose ebriety is 
thrust upon the public eye as they reel along the streets, — 
but softened into " a glass too much," or being " a little 
elevated," when a well-educated gentleman is driven home in 
his own carriage, in a state of insensibility, and put to bed 
by his own servants. The half-starved wretch, who finds in 
casual intoxication meat, drink, clothing, fuel, and oblivion, 
may be fined, or put in the stocks, because he cannot afford 
to conceal his offence ; but the bon vivant, whose habitual 
intemperance has none of these excuses, shall escape with 
impunity, because he sins in a dining, instead of a tap-room. 
" A drunkard," says Sir Edward Coke, " who is a voluntary 
madman, hath no privilege thereby ; " — but he should have 
added, except he be a gentleman in station. To the credit 
of modern manners, it must be admitted that the two cha- 
racters are now hardly ever found united. 

Droll, though not very logical or conclusive was the reply 
of the tipsy Irishman, who, as he supported himself by the 
iron railings of Merrion Square, was advised by a passenger 
to betake himself home. " Ah now, be aisy ; I live in the 
square ; isn't it going round and round, and when I see my 
own door come up, won't I pop into it in a jiffey ? " 

DUELLING, How to avoid. — This desirable immunity 
may be accomplished by a pleasanter method than by 
plagiarising Mr. O'Connell's oath, — videlicet, by falling in 



i 3 4 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

love, when you may decline a challenge after the following 
fashion of one of our old amatory poets — 

" 'Tis not the fear of death or smart, 

Makes men averse to fight, 

But to preserve a tender heart, 

Not mine but Celia's right. 

" Then let your fury be supprest, 
Not me, but Celia, spare, 
Your sword is welcome to my breast, 
When Celia is not there.", 

DUELLIST — a moral coward, seeking to hide the pusil- 
lanimity of his mind, by affecting a corporeal courage. In- 
stead of discharging a pistol, the resort of bullies and 
bravoes, the really brave soul will dare to discharge its duty 
to Go4 and man, by refusing to break the laws of both. He 
is the true hero who can exclaim in the sublime language of 
Voltaire, " Je crains Dieu, cher Abner, et je n y at d'autre 
crainte" 

DULNESS — Do not see the present work. — "I cannot 
exactly perceive the scope of your argument, and therefore I 
cannot adopt your opinion," said a gentleman with whom 
Dr. Parr had been arguing. " Then, Sir," said the doctor, 
" I can only say that you have the dulness of lead without 

its malleability." Serjeant K having made two or three 

mistakes, while conducting a cause, petulantly exclaimed, 
" I seem to be inoculated with dulness to-day." " Inocu- 
lated, brother ? " said Erskine, " I thought you had it in the 
natural way." 

DUMBFOUNDER — a verbal checkmate which incapa- 
citates your adversary from making another move of his 
jaws. " I do not write for fools," said a boastful and asinine 



" OR, HEADS AND TALES. 135 

pretender to literature : " I only wish to please those who 
have the same taste as myself, and to do this, every leaf that 
I produce must be full of point. Such being my feelings, 
what would you have me give to the world ? " " Thistles ! p 
replied a wag. 

Dr. Parr was celebrated for the unsparing severity with 
which he could deal out his dumbfounders, when the occa- 
sion justified their infliction. A flippant chatterer, after 
having spoken slightingly of the miracles, exclaimed, "Well 
but, Doctor, what think you of the mark of the cross upon 
the ass's back, which they say indicates the precise spot 
where the animal was smitten by Balaam?" — "Why, Sir," 
replied the doctor, " I say that if you had a little more of the 
cross, and a good deal less of the ass, it would be much 
better for you." Upon another occasion, a shallow smatterer 
tauntingly asked him why he did not write a book : — " Sir, I 
know a method by which I might soon write a very large 
one." "Ay, Doctor! how so?" "Why, Sir, by putting in 
all that I know, and all that you do not know." 

DUTY — financially, a tax which we pay to the public 
excise and customs ; morally, that which we are very apt to 
excise in our private customs. " Les hommes" says Vol- 
taire, " se piquent toujours de remfilir tin devoir qui les dis- 
tingue? If singularity be a distinction, they might easily 
attain it by a conscientious discharge of religious and moral 
duty. 

DUTY, Parental — sometimes consists in making our 
children a stalking-horse for our own failings and vices. Of 
all the virtuous disguises which self-love is made to assume, 
the most accommodating, the most sanctimonious, the most 
demure-looking, is the mask which gives to us the appear- 
ance of loving others. 



136 THE TIN TRUMPET ; 

The avaricious man, the gambling speculator, the fraudu- 
lent dealer have all the same plausible excuse ; they are 
making fortunes for their children, which, however, they 
never give to them, when acquired, until the hand of death 
wrenches the booty from their grasp. It is remarkable too, 
that many of the loving fathers who boast what great things 
they are thus doing for their offspring, are the last to do 
small things for them, refusing them the most trivial indul- 
gence, ruling them with a rod of iron, and making them at 
one time the stalking-horse, and at another the scape-goat of 
their own humours and propensities. Oh ! how pleasant is 
it when the affectionate parent can in this manner throw 
a garb of goodness over his evil passions, and sin with a 
safe conscience ! 



AR, Pleasures of the — the most spiritual of 
all enjoyments, the least sensual of the senses. 
Where can its sensibilities be so well cultivated, 
and impart such a hallowing character to de- 
light, as amid the various and exquisite har- 
monies of nature, the vocal fields, the rustling woods, the 
deep-mouthed and sonorous sea? Let each of these pleasant 
sounds, as it falls upon the drum of the ear, be as a reveille, 
calling upon our thoughts to arise, and be wafted heaven- 
ward upon the symphonious air. These are the feelings that 
make all music sacred. No wonder that the deaf are often 
morose and dejected, while the blind, shut out as they are 
from the world, almost invariably draw in cheerfulness 
through the ear. 

EATING and DRINKING— supplying the lamp of life 
with cotton and oil. "The proverb's somewhat musty," but 
it cannot be too often repeated that we should " eat to live 




OR, HEADS AND TALES. 137 

not live to eat," for if we make the stomach a cemetery of 
food, the body will soon become the sepulchre of the soul. 

" Pone gulae metas, ut sit tibi longior aetas," 

whether in this world or the next : for to make a god of your 
belly, is to sell yourself to the devil. 

One half of mankind pass their lives in thinking how they 
shall get a dinner, and the other in thinking what dinner 
they shall get ; and the first are much less injured by occa- 
sional fasts, than are the latter by constant feasts. 

ECHO — the shadow of a sound — a voice without a 
mouth, and words without a tongue. Echo, though repre- 
sented as a female, never speaks till she is spoken to, and at 
every repetition of what she has heard, continues to make it 
less, an example recommended to the special imitation of. 
chatterboxes and scandal-mongers. 

ECONOMY — a pauper without a parish, whom no one 
will own or adopt, unless compelled by necessity. It has 
long since been driven out of every rich house, while the 
churchwardens and overseers take good care that it shall 
never be admitted into the poor-house. Government, after 
having long turned a deaf ear to its remonstrances, must 
take it up, or the government itself must break down.* 

EDUCATION, Modern — a game of cross purposes. 
" Aujourdhui? says Montesquieu, "noiis recevons trots educa- 
tions differentes ou contraires j celle de nos fteres, celle de nos 

* Had the author lived, he would doubtless have been gratified to find 
that this article — thanks to the patriotic exertions of the Whig Govern- 
ment—was no longer applicable, either to our parochial or national 
expenditure. — Ed. 



e 3 8 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

maitres, celle du monde. Ce qu'on nous dit dans la derniere, 
renverse toutes les idees des premieres. Cela vient en qtielque 
fiariie, du contraste quHl y a fiarmi nous, entre les engage- 
mens de la religion et ceux dti monde, chose que les anciens ne 
connaissaient pas." Every one's experience and observation 
must have confirmed the truth of this averment. At five 
years of age, the father begins to rub the mother out of his 
child ; at ten, the schoolmaster rubs out the father ; at 
twenty, the college rubs out the schoolmaster ; at twenty- 
five, the world rubs out all its predecessors, and gives us a 
new education, till we are old enough to take reason and 
religion for our pastors, when we employ the rest of our lives 
in unlearning all that we had previously learnt. The universe 
is the best university, for it teaches us to forget a great 
portion of what we have acquired at all the others. 

When most of our colleges and public schools were founded, 
a knowledge of Latin and Greek was the paramount deside- 
ratum, not only because the classics were the fashionable 
study, but because all learning and science, whether ancient 
or contemporary, was confined to those tongues. The 
scholars, moreover, were mostly intended for the professions, 
an object which rendered a knowledge of Latin indispens- 
able, the Bible and the Church service, the law and the law 
proceedings, as well as the mysteries of medicine, being locked 
up in that language. All this is now totally changed : the 
classics are accessible in a variety of excellent translations, 
— Literati publish in the language of their respective coun- 
tries, — and the professions, with the solitary exception of 
medical prescriptions, which may be, and are learnt by heart, 
without the least knowledge of Latin, are all carried on in 
English. And yet under circumstances diametrically oppo- 
site, our educational system remains precisely the same, and 
boys, at a costly sacrifice of toil and suffering, waste several 
of the most precious years of life in laying up stores for 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 139 

oblivion, in composing nonsense verses, which they have the 
good sense to forget as rapidly as they can, and in acquiring 
a mere smattering of Latin and Greek, which not one in a 
hundred retains after he has embarked in the business or 
pleasures of life. Nothing has so completely survived its 
original aims and intentions, and nothing therefore so impe- 
ratively demands a thorough reform, as our scholastic and 
collegiate establishments. Aware of this fact, the founders 
of the London University have given it a system much better 
adapted to the spirit and the wants of the times. Modern 
and foreign literature are cultivated under able teachers ; 
lectures are delivered on a variety of useful subjects, totally 
neglected at our old institutions ; and professorships have 
been established for every branch of science with which an 
accomplished gentleman ought to be conversant. 

It is remarkable, that while our sons continue to be 
educated at our old colleges and public schools upon the 
same system that existed several hundred years ago, the 
tuition of our daughters has undergone a total change. For 
housewifery, formerly the one thing needful, we have sub- 
stituted the accomplishments which, however ornamental 
and attractive, are scarcely more enduring than the nonsense 
verses of the boy. After a ridiculous waste of money and 
time upon a French dancing-master, the pupil is told, upon 
her coming out, that as nothing is so vulgar as to dance, she 
must forget all her saltatory lessons, and walk through a 
quadrille as quietly as possible. At a not less costly outlay, 
she is taught by an Italian to sing a Bravura ; but if colds, 
sickness, or time do not lay siege to her voice, she is sure to 
lose it when she marries, for few indeed retain their accom- 
plishments after they have answered their purposes of pro- 
curing a husband. Thus successfully do they rival their 
brothers, by forgetting in two or three years, what it has 
required eight or ten to drill into them. 



140 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

As a proof how little a college education, even when it has 
been most successfully prosecuted, qualifies a man for the 
business and duties of the world, it has been ascertained 
that very few of those who take their degrees with the 
greatest eclat, have ever attained any subsequent eminence. 
In Archdeacon Wrangham's Sertwn Cantabrigiense — pri- 
vately printed, Malton, 1824, is a list of those who took 
honours at Cambridge from 1754 to 1823. Of two thousand 
nine hundred names thus registered, hardly any in after 
life obtained the smallest distinction. Even of the seventy 
senior wranglers, very few became afterwards known. So 
much for university tests of talent ! 

Even the partisans of the old system, with all its cherished 
ineptitudes, are but the blind instruments for advancing that 
of which they would fain arrest the march. Rough-hew their 
purposes how they will, individuals, classes, nations, are all 
receiving an unconscious education, over which they have 
little control, from the divine Schoolmaster, who, looking 
upon the whole human race as his scholars, and generations 
as his successive classes, is preparing us, by the gradual deve- 
lopment of our energies and talents, for that loftier position 
in the scale of existence, to which man is eventually destined. 

EFFECTS — do not always result from causes, as many a 
lawyer, whose bill remains unpaid, knows to his cost. A 
suitor for the hand of a young lady at Harrogate, had been 
repeatedly warned that she was of a violent and ungovernable 
temper, but persisted in attributing the information to envy 
or mistake. — " At length," said the lover, relating his mishap 
to a friend, " I got into an argument with my dear Maria 
about a mere trifle, when she so far forgot herself, in a 
moment of passion, as to throw a cup of tea in my face." 
" And what was the effect ? " inquired his auditor. — " Oh ! 
Unit completely opened my eyes ! " 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 14 r 

" I was rather hot at the moment," said a man when asked 
how he came to commit an assault, " and so I struck the 
fellow." Here was an instance of an effect before a cause. 
Percussion generally produces heat, but in this case the heat 
produced the percussion. 

EFFEMINACY — wearing moral petticoats. A mascu- 
line woman is much more endurable than an effeminate man ; 
for, though both are abandoning their proper sphere, the 
former seeks to rise above, the latter to sink beneath, it. 
There is an ambition about the one, which, though it may- 
be offensive, does not move our scorn ; whereas there is a 
pitiful meanness in the other, which always renders it 
contemptible. 

Even among our senators, we have ringleted effeminates, 
whom Nature, evidently designing them for barbers, supplied 
with ready-made blocks, giving them, at the same time, the 
tonsorial loquacity that enables them to speak to everything 
— except the point, and to cut everything — except a joke. 
Let them wield the comb, and leave the making of laws to 
others ; let them braid their hair, and cease to upbraid 
reformers ; let them abstain from Parliament, over the doors 
of which should be inscribed the words of Ovid — 

11 Sint procul a nobis juvenes ut faemina compti." 

Let them perpend the following passage of Seneca — " Horum 
quis est, qui 11011 malit rempublicam turbari, quam comam 
suam ? qui non sollicitior sit de capitis sui decore, quam de 
salute generis humani?" — "Which of these effeminates 
would not rather see the State thrown into disorder than 
his hair ? Which of them is not more anxious about the 
becoming arrangement of his curls, than the welfare of the 
whole human race ? " 



142 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

EGOTISM— suffering the private I to be too much in the 
public eye. We are offended at the arrogance of Cardinal 
Wolsey's ego et rex meusj but there is a species of egotism 
so dignified and noble, that in the elevation which it gives to 
our common nature, we lose all sense of individual presump- 
tion. — Such is the character of the following passage from 
Milton :— 

" For the world, I count it not as an inn but a hospital ; 
and a place not to live but to die in. The world that I 
regard is myself. It is mine own frame that I cast mine eye 
on ; for the other, I use it but like my globe, and turn it 
round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon 
my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do err 
in my altitude, for I am above Atlas his shoulders. The 
earth is a point, not only in respect of the heavens above us, 
but of that heavenly and celestial part within us. That mass 
of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind. That 
surface that tells the heavens they have an end, cannot per- 
suade me I have any. I take my circle to be above three 
hundred and sixty. Though .the number of the arc do 
measure my body, it comprehendeth not my mind : whilst 
I study to find how I am a microcosm, or little world, I find 
myself something more than the great. There is surely a 
piece of divinity to us — something that was before the 
elements, and owing no homage unto the sun. He that 
understands not this much, hath not his introductions or 
first lesson, and is yet to begin the alphabet of man." 

ELECTION, General — hiring servants at a statute fair, 
which, however, will never be a fair statute, until it resumes 
its original triennial form. A general election, like varnish 
on a faded picture, draws out all the bright spots and favour- 
able tints of our common nature. How delightful to the 
philanthropist to contemplate such a galaxy of purity and 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 143 

glory as is then radiant in a thousand speeches and adver- 
tisements. This is not the moment in which the old Member, 
who is desirous of remaining as a fixture at St. Stephen's, 
should be taken at his own valuation ; or when the new 
candidate should receive implicit credit for his pledges and 
promises. They who can no longer frank letters, now frank 
their own praises, which they convey to their constituents 
without any fear of their being overweight. The candidates, 
instead of wearing white robes, appear in white characters 
of their own giving ; they are all immaculate, impeccable. 
There is a general avalanche of snow-like purity of purpose, 
and the cardinal virtues are as common as vices at any other 
time. If we had annual parliaments we should soon reach 
the Millennium. Pity that men who always represent them- 
selves so amiably in their speeches, should sometimes mis- 
represent themselves so lamentably in private, and their 
constituents in public life ! — If the senatorial dignity could 
exempt from reproach, as well as from arrest, and the man 
who cannot make laws for himself, could legislate for a 
nation, our House of Commons would be no common 
house. 

ELEVATION — of Station is very often accompanied with 
depression of spirits. Success disappoints us ; we feel our- 
selves out of our sphere, and sigh for the lost happiness of 
our humbler days. "You see how languid the carp are," 
said Madame de Maintenon to her friend, when looking into 
a marble fish-pond at Marly : " they are like me — they regret 
their mud? 

ELOPEMENT — beginning in disobedience that which 
generally terminates in misery. 

EMBALMING — making a flesh statue; — eternalising a 



144 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

corpse ; — perpetuating the perishable with more pains than 
we take to save that which is immortal. 

ENDOWMENTS, Church.— See Poison ; but do not 
see the Bible. An old tradition bears, that when Constan- 
tine, the emperor, first endowed the Church, a voice was 
heard from heaven, crying out, " This day is poison poured 
into her ! " — Whatever may be thought of the tradition, no 
one can doubt the fulfilment of the prophecy. 

Wherever Religion has been the mother of Wealth, the 
daughter has invariably devoured the parent. 

ENNUI — a French word for an English malady, which 
generally arises from the want of a want, and constitutes the 
complaint of those who have nothing to complain of. By 
the equalising provisions of nature, the rich, idle, and luxuri- 
ous, are thus brought down to the level of their seeming in- 
feriors, and made to envy those who envy them. When this 
ugly Goliah haunts the mind, he is only to be subdued by 
exertion and occupation. — "Throw but a stone, the giant 
dies." Authors have too much to do with printers' devils, to 
be annoyed with blue devils. They may inflict, but they 
seldom suffer, ennui. No exorcism for the spleen, and the 
vapours, like that of the Muse. When Bellerophon went 
forth to conquer the Chimaera, he mounted Pegasus. 

ENTHUSIASM— that effervescence of the heart, or the 
imagination, which is the most potent stimulus of our nature, 
where it stops short of mental intoxication. " Conscience," 
says Madame de Stael, "is, doubtless, sufficient to conduct 
the coldest character into the road of virtue ; but enthusiasm 
is to conscience, what honour is to duty : there is in us a su- 
perfluity of soul, which it is sweet to consecrate to the beau- 
tiful, when the good has been accomplished. Our genius 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 145 

and our imagination require to be gratified in this world ; and 
the law of duty, however sublime it may be, is not sufficient 
to make us taste all the wonders of the heart and the head." 

ENVY — punishing ourselves for being inferior to our 
neighbours, If, instead of looking at what our superiors 
possess, we could see what they actually enjoy, there would 
be much less envy, and more pity, in the world. 

" The envious man," says St. Gregory, " is made unhappy, 
not by his own misfortunes, but by the successes of others ; 
and, on the other hand, he does not enjoy his own good for- 
tune so much as the misfortunes of his neighbours. "Invidus 
non suis malis, sed alienis bonis infelix est; et contra, non 
suo bono sed malts firoximis felix? Our affected contempt 
of greatness is only an envious attempt to lift ourselves above 
the great, and thus achieve an imaginary superiority. "Since 
we cannot attain grandeur," says Montaigne, "let us take our 
revenge by abusing it." 

The envy that grudges the successes for which it would 
want the courage to contend, was well rebuked by the French 
Marshal Lefevre. One of his friends, expressing the most 
unbounded admiration of his magnificent hotel, and exquisite 
cuisine, exclaimed, at the end of every phrase, " How fortu- 
nate you are !" "I see you envy me," said the Marshal ; "but 
come, you shall have all that I possess at a much cheaper 
rate than I myself paid for it ; step down with me into the 
court-yard, you shall let me fire twenty musket shots at you, 
at the distance of thirty paces, and if I fail to bring you 
down, all that I have is yours. — What ! you refuse !" said 
the Marshal, seeing that his friend demurred, — " know, that 
before I reached my present eminence, I was obliged to 
stand more than a thousand musket shots, and, sacre! those 
who pulled the triggers were nothing like thirty paces from 
me." 

L 



145 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

EPICURE. — An epicure has no sinecure; he is unmade, 
and eventually dished by made dishes. Champagne falsifies 
its name, when once it begins to affect his system ; his 
stomach is so deranged in its punctuation, that his colon 
makes a point of coming to a full stop ; keeping it up late, 
ends in his being laid down early ; and the bon vivant who 
has been always hunting pleasure, finds at last, that he has 
been only whipping and spurring, that he might be the sooner 
in at his own death ! 

EPITAPHS — giving a good character to parties on their 
going into a new place, who sometimes had a very bad 
character in the place they have just left. For the de mor- 
tuis nil nisi bontim, it would be an improvement to substi- 
tute nil nisi verumj since the fear of posthumous disrepute 
would be an additional incentive to living good conduct. No 
man could pass through a truth-telling churchyard, without 
feeling the full value of character. 

What can more impressively stamp the evanescency of 
man and all his works, than an epitaph on a whole nation, 
which shall afford nearly the sole evidence of its ever having 
existed? Such are the cinerary urns of the Etruscans, of 
whose history we have little other record than their tombs, 
and of whose literature few other remains than their alphabet. 
A whole empire stat nominis umbra ! The signs have sur- 
vived the ideas of which they were the symbols : the chisel 
has outlasted the statue. Volterra, and other great Etruscan 
cemeteries, may be termed the skeletons of their cities. 

Few more appropriate epitaphs than the common Latin 
one of " Stim quod eris, fui quod sis" — "I am what thou 
shalt be, I was what thou art." 

Beloe, in his anecdotes, gives a good punning epitaph on 
William Lawes, the musical composer, who was killed by the 
Roundheads. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES, 147 

" Concord is conquer'd ! In this urn there lies 
The master of great Music's mysteries ; 
And in it is a riddle, like the cause, 
Will Lawes was slain by men whose Wills were Laws." 

More witty than decorous was the epitaph composed in 
the reign of Henry III., for a Sir John Calfe, who died 
young. — 

" O Deus omnipotens, Vituli miserere Joannis, 
Quem mors prseveniens noluit esse bovem." 

Sir Christopher Wren's inscription in St. Paul's Church — 
"Si monumentum quceris, circumsfiice" — would be equally 
applicable to a physician, buried in a churchyard ; both being 
interred in the midst of their own works. 

In the epitaph of Cardinal Onuphrio at Rome, there breathes 
a solemn, almost a bitter conviction of the vanity of earthly 
grandeur — "Hie jacet umbra, cinis — nihil" — Here lies a 
shadow — ashes, nothing. There is great tenderness and beauty 
in the two lines found upon an ancient Roman tomb, supposed 
to be addressed by a young wife to her surviving husband : 

' ' Immatura peri, sed tu, felicior, annos 
Vive tuos, conjux optime, vive meos." 

But a still more simple and affecting epitaph is the follow- 
ing, translated verbatim from a tomb at Montmartre, near 
Paris : — " To the memory of M. Jobart, a most excellent 
husband and father. His inconsolable widow still continues 
to carry on the grocery business in the Rue St. Denis, No. 
242, near the Cafe" Chinois." 

EQUAL — that which a man of talent will seldom find 
among his superiors. As the winds and waters, abrasion 
and gravitation, are perpetually tending towards a physical 



i 4 8 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

equalisation, by lowering mountains and filling up valleys, 
so, in the moral world, does the progress of social improve- 
ment gradually tend to equalise all ranks, by reducing the 
higher, and elevating the lower ; a levelling process, equally 
conducive to the happiness and melioration of both. Civili- 
zation is, in fact, a gravitation towards that happy medium 
which is the centre of attraction to the social circle. 
Almost every man is a loser by being elevated above the 
sphere to which he is habituated. When the Duke of 
Orleans proposed to make Fontenelle perpetual President of 
the Academy of Sciences, his reply was — " Take not from 
me, my Lord, the delight of living with my equals." 

ERROR of calculation.— The life of nine-tenths of man- 
kind is a gross error of calculation, since they attach them- 
selves to the evanescent, and neglect the permanent, accu- 
mulating riches in a world from which they are constantly 
running away, and laying up no treasures in that eternity 
to which every day, hour, minute, brings them nearer and 
nearer. 

ESPRIT DE CORPS— is a corporate partiality or pre- 
judice ; a feeling of clanship and confraternity ; a selfishness 
at second hand, which induces us to prefer the members of 
our own club, guild, or coterie, not only to others, but to 
reason and justice. It prefers Plato to truth, even though 
Plato be personally unknown, provided he belongs to the 
same clique. Nationality is but esprit de corps on a large 
scale, selfishness spread over the surface of a whole country; 
and the propensity sometimes exhibits itself in still more 
extensive divisions. In hunting or baiting wild beasts, there 
is a strong feeling of humanity, or, rather, of inhumanity, 
against bestiality. We sympathise with the basest of our 
own species, rather than with the noblest of the animal race. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 149 

Among ourselves, there is a sexual esprit de corps, — the men 
siding with the males, the women with the females ; the 
single with the single, and the married with the married. Of 
this latter propensity advantage was taken by an unfortunate 
Irishman, who, being arraigned for accidentally killing his 
wife, contrived, by objecting to the bachelors, to procure a 
jury of married men, when he stated that the deceased, an 
habitual drunkard, had used the most insulting language at 
the moment of the fatal occurrence. This appeal came so 
completely home to the business and bosoms of his auditors, 
several of whom had not improbably been placed in similar 
circumstances, that they were presently agreed in their 
decision, when the foreman coming forward, and addressing 
himself to the Judge, exclaimed, with a voice and look of 
great energy — " Please, my Lord, our vardict is — Sarved her 
right!" 

ESTATE, a landed one for all!— Terra Firma for my 
money. Well may it be called real property ; there is none 
other that deserves the name. What are public securities, 
as they are impudently termed? Ask the impoverished 
bond-holders of the South American States, or of Greece. 
Neither their new nor old governments, neither despotism 
nor republicanism, can give certain tangibility or visibility 
to that ghost of defunct money yclept a dividend. What 
will tithes soon be worth in England ? — what they are now 
worth in Ireland. In ten years, the claim for tenths will be 
no more observed than are the ten commandments at present. 
What is the value of houses ? It is notorious that they are 
everywhere falling, especially the very old ones ; rents threaten 
to be all peppercorns; house owners will not get salt to their 
porridge, even if they distrain upon their tenants, and make 
quarter day a day without quarter. No — give me land. 
The man who walks upon his own estate carries himself erect, 



150 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

and plants his foot upon the ground with an air of confidence 
and consequence. 

Perhaps I feel this the more sensibly, because I have not 
a single acre in possession. Nothing, however, can prevent 
my succeeding to a small estate which I have lately been 
inspecting. It certainly possesses many advantages, being 
tithe-free, and the land-tax redeemed. In this snug retreat, 
which is perfectly sequestered, you are surrounded with 
wood, and yet close to a populous neighbourhood, to the 
parish church, and the high road. Its proprietor enjoys 
several privileges and advantages: he pays no taxes, is 
exempt from serving in the militia, or sitting upon juries, his 
privacy is undisturbed by the impertinent intrusion of neigh- 
bours, he has no cares by day, and he is sure of a sound 
sleep at night. When a new occupant comes to take pos- 
session, he usually arrives in a coach and four, with numerous 
attendants, and he is not only received with bell-ringing, but 
the clergyman, and a portion of the parishioners, go out to 
meet him, and escort him home with much ceremony. The 
house, though it can hardly be called anything better than a 
mere country box, has so many recommendations, that there 
is no instance of an occupant quitting it, after he has once 
given it a fair trial. 

Readers ! whether gentle or simple, you need not envy me 
my expectations. A similar landed estate is entailed upon 
every one of you, and upon your children's children. If you 
want a description of it, refer to Blair's poem of—" The 
Grave." 

One of the Roman emperors wept that nothing could pre- 
vent the master of the wide world from being finally impri- 
soned in an urn. I would counsel some of our landed 
proprietors — 

" large-acred men, 
Lords of fat Evesham, and of Lincoln fen " — 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 151 

who, in the pride of their possessions, " bestride the narrow 
earth like a Colossus," to cast their eyes downwards, if 
looking upwards will not teach them humility, and to reflect 
that their huge estates must inevitably shrink into six feet 
by two ! 

ETYMOLOGY — sending vagrant words back to their 
own parish. It was said of Menage, that in requiring every 
word to surrender its passport, he not only inquired whence 
it came, but whither it was going. 

An ancient grammarian tells us that the Greek word #«, 
to breathe, consists of alpha and omega, the first and last 
letters of the alphabet, because to inspire and to expire, form 
the beginning and ending of man's life. This is a fine 
instance of forepov irpSrepov, or putting the cart before the 
horse ; the learned philologist having forgotten that men 
breathe before they speak, and that languages long preceded 
the time of Cadmus and the invention of letters and alpha- 
bets. While upon the subject I may mention that the word 
sack is found in all languages, which a profound antiquary 
has explained, by suggesting that it was necessary to leave 
that primitive word, in order that every man, when he took 
his departure from the tower of Babel, might ask for his own 
bag. Titles of dignity, derived from age, seem also to have 
spread from the same root into a great variety of languages ; 
our sir, signor, senator, and perhaps seneschal, being iden- 
tical with the scheik, shah, and aga of the orientals, and 
the schachem of the red Indians. Titles inferring supe- 
rior age do not, however, always command our respect,, 
as, for instance, in the case of our London elder or 
aldermen. 

Somewhat far-fetched was the conceit* of an erudite etymo- 
logist, who maintained that the term bag-pipe was originally 
a Hebrew word, signifying a larger sort of sack-but, sack 



i 5 2 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

and bag being synonymous terms, and a butt being half a 
pipe. 

Learned philologists are very apt to imitate the ignorant 
butcher, who spent a whole morning in searching for the 
knife which he held in his mouth — a wild-goose chase, which 
has been eminently illustrated in their endless wanderings 
for the origin of the word danger, when it was difficult to stir 
a step without stumbling over its real etymology. We need 
not go any further back than the siege of Troy to discover it 
at once. After the capture of that city, by the well-known 
stratagem of the wooden horse, an event with which every 
Roman became familiar, only twelve hundred years after- 
wards, through the writings of Virgil, it was customary to 
exclaim, whenever any fraud or trick was suspected, " Danaos 
gerit ? " — " Are there any Greeks in this pretended horse ? " 
— meaning any cheat or imposture. The phrase was soon 
proverbial, and with the habitual indolence of the Italians, 
was eventually contracted into one word, by taking the in- 
itial syllable of each ; so that whenever they smelt a rat, as 
we say in English, or anticipated any perils, they exclaimed, 
interrogatively, "dan-ger?" Is it not almost incredible, that 
so obvious a derivation should have been overlooked by the 
most acute of our etymologists? Henceforth let us hear no 
more of the butcher and his knife. 

In searching for the signification of words, we are not, 
however, always to take them au pied de la letire, or we 
might define a hypocrite to be a judge of horses — a syco- 
phant, as a fig-seer — a beldam, as a handsome lady — 
consideration, as a collection of stars — understanding, as a 
pair of shoes — and sincere as unwaxed. Into these and 
similar errors, the enlightened etymologist is in no fear 
of falling, for he will ever bear in mind the fundamental 
rule of his art, viz., to pay little attention to consonants 
and none to vowels. Why should letters obstruct him 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 153 

when he is considering things of such importance as 
words ? 

EXAGGERATION, Intemperate— diminishing by addi- 
tion, as the word small is made smaller by appending two 
more letters to it. When a man asserts too much, whether 
in the shape of praise or censure, we take our revenge by 
falling into an opposite error, and believe too little. The same 
effect is often produced by that confusion of ideas or terms 
which is designated a bull. A Radical, inveighing against 
the rapacity of the clergy, gave it as his decided opinion, that 
if they had their own way, they would raise the tithes from 
a tenth to a twentieth. On the other hand, an intended 
diminution, by the same figure of speech, may amount to an 
exaggeration. " I have just met our old acquaintance Daly," 
said an Irishman to his friend, " and was sorry to see he has 
almost shrunk away to nothing. You are thin and I am 
thin, but he is thinner than both of us put together." Did 
the Hibernian sailor exaggerate or diminish when, in de- 
scribing the weather, he said, " There was but little wind, but 
what there was, was uncommonly high." 

EXAMPLE. — It is much more easy to imitate bad example 
than good, because it has our natural inclination on its 
side. Perverse natures find a positive gratification in 
doing wrong. A man of this stamp, who was remarkably 
fond of pork, once expressed his regret that he had not 
been born a Jew, in order that he might enjoy the double 
pleasure of eating his favourite viand, and sinning at the 
same time. 

EXCEPTIONS — prove every rule, as we are told, except 
the rule that " every rule has its exception." Nothing can 
be rendered more exceptionable than an exception, even when 



154 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

accompanied with an invidious eulogy. According to Saville, 
poets are the best of all authors — except prose writers. 

F , defending a kind-hearted unmarried woman, whose 

character, however, was far from immaculate, exclaimed 
"Out of the pale of marriage and celibacy, I protest that I 
do not know a more respectable person." Cases may occur 
where parties are not to be conciliated, either by their inclu- 
sion or exclusion. " How many fools, including yourself, 
went to the lecture on phrenology ? " demanded a collegian 
to his comrade, who, instead of answering the inquiry, took 
the term applied to him in high dudgeon. — " Well, then," 
resumed his friend ; " how many fools were there without 
reckoning yourself ? " 

Under this head we may insert one of the very few jokes 
attributed to William Pitt. As Lord Warden of the Cinque 
Ports, he presided at a public meeting, held in Dover, during 
the war, for the purpose of raising a volunteer corps, when 
the secretary, in drawing up the conditions on which they 
were to be embodied, said to the chairman, " I suppose, sir, 
that I am to insert the usual clause — not to serve out of the 
country." — " Certainly, certainly," • smiled Pitt, " except in 
case of invasion ! " 

Few will be unacquainted with Swift's saving clause, when, 
in his anxiety to promote the products and manufactures of 
the Irish, he recommended them to burn everything that 
came from England, except her coals. 

EXCULPATION, A satisfactory.— " My good friend!" 
exclaimed an enraged author, who had been lampooned and 
libelled in a review, " I have strong reason to suspect that I 

have received this stab in the dark from that rascal M ." 

— '* Make your mind perfectly easy," said his friend ; 

" M is the last man to give you a stab in the dark ; 

first, because he always held you in light estimation, and, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 155 

secondly, because I know him to be a fellow who would not 
stick at anything." 

Ingenious enough, though, perhaps, not literally true, was 
the excuse of the day-boarder, who, being asked one morning 
why he came to school so late, replied that, owing to the 
hard frost and the slipperiness of the ground, he had taken 
two steps backwards for one step forwards. " In that case," 
inquired the master, " how did you manage to get here at 
all ? " — " Oh, sir ! I turned about and came the other 
way." 

EXCUSE — confessing our faults by attempting to excuse 
them — Qui ^excuse ^accuse. Good intentions, with which, 
according to Wesley, hell is paved, are no defence of evil 
actions. We have all of us pleas and evasions enough not 
only for leaving undone what we ought to have done, but for 
doing what we ought not to have done. 

A gentleman, who had just put aside two bottles of capital 
ale to recreate some friends, discovered, just before dinner, 
that his servant, a country bumpkin, had emptied them both. 
" Scoundrel ! " said his master, " what do you mean by this ? " 
— " Why, sir, I saw, plain enough, by the clouds, that it were 
going to thunder, so I drank up the yale at once, lest it should 
turn sour, for there's nothing I do abominate like waste." 
Fuseli, when he failed in any of his serious caricatures, used 
to complain that Nature put him out : and the sluttish house- 
maid, when scolded for the untidiness of the chambers, 
exclaimed, " I'm sure, the rooms would be clean enough, if it 
were not for the nasty sun, which is always showing the 
dirty corners." 

EXPEDIENTS — remedies for half our pains and sorrows, 
did we but know how to find and to apply them. There 
must, certain!* be a charm in enacting the part of Jaques — - 



r56 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

in having " a cue for villanous melancholy," and a " sigh 
like Tom o' Bedlam." Whether it be that our self-love is 
gratified by exciting sympathy, or our vanity by being made 
the subject of conversation, it is unquestionable that we cling 
to our little ills and ailments as if they conferred a sort of 
distinction. Never could I entirely agree with the pensive 
poet when he exclaims — 

" Go ! you may call it madness, folly, 
You shall not chase my griefs away, 

There's such a charm in melancholy, 
I would not if I could be gay." 

But I can accord with the French writer, who affirms, that a 
woman always finds her physician and confessor the most 
delightful companions in the world, because she is constantly 
talking to them about herself, her complaints, and her pecca- 
dilloes. Men are precisely the same in the auricular confes- 
sions of society, and almost any girl may be sure of winning 
their affections, provided she be a patient and persevering 
listener to their aches and annoyances, real or imaginary. 
This must be the secret reason why we often refuse to avail 
ourselves of expedients which would effectually remove all 
our grievances, and which are too palpable to have escaped 
our notice. A lady, of delicate health, who loved to talk of 

her rheums and rheumatics, complained to S that she 

rarely went out to make purchases without catching cold, 
because they never kept their shop-doors shut. " My dear 

madam," said S , " how easily you might avoid all this ! 

— You should make it a rule never to go a shopping except 
on a Sunday." " You sot of a fellow ! " exclaimed a poor 
woman to her husband: "you are always at the public-house, 
getting drunk with hot purl, while I am at home with nothing 
to drink but cold water." — " Cold, you silly jade ! "hiccoughed 
the husband, " why don't you warm it ? " 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 157 

Strange, that neither of the females should have previously 
hit upon such obvious and satisfactory expedients ! Infinitely 
quick and apt in expedients, was the manager of a country 
theatre, who, when requested, by a lady of rank in the 
neighbourhood, to get up the play of Henry the VHIth, 
regretted that the state of his company would not allow it ; 
but added that they could very well manage to perform the 
two parts of Henry the IVth, which would come to exactly 
the same thing. 

EXTEMPORE — a premeditated impromptu. 

EYE-GLASS — a toy which enables a coxcomb to see 
others, and others to see that he is a coxcomb. 




ABLES — giving human intellects to brutes, in 
imitation of Nature, who sometimes gives brute 
intellects to men. 

FACE— the silent echo of the heart 



FAITH. — If all the innumerable false and forgotten 
faiths, and ail the myriads of men who have contentedly 
died in their belief, after having spent a long life in hating 
or persecuting those who disbelieved them, could be pre- 
sented at once to our apprehension and sight, what a 
lowering impression would it give of human reason, and 
how forcibly would it inculcate humility as to our own 
opinions and toleration towards the opinions of others ! — 
And this would be the genuine feeling of Christianity, for the 
Scriptures assure us, more than once, that the Lord "ordaineth 
his arrows against the persecutors." 



e 5 8 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

FALSE POINTS.— The author who pays more attention 
to the manner than the matter of his writings, and excites an 
expectation by his studied conceits and antitheses, which is 
not justified by the subject or the sentiment, may be com- 
pared to an ill-trained dog, which by stopping to make a 
false point where there are no birds, only makes game of his 
master. Punning writers are comical dogs of this sort, who 
often raise our expectation, but seldom enable us to bring 
down a thought, or put anything into our memory-bag. There 
are dull dogs, on the contrary, who weary you by beating 
about the bush, and who seem to make a point of never 
making a point, even though they may be surrounded by 
numerous coveys of intellectual game. The writings of 
Jeremy Bentham constitute a well-stocked preserve of valu- 
able thoughts, entrenched in such a chevaux de /rise of 
crooked, crabbed, and impenetrable language, that nobody 
can get at them. Some one said of his style that it was a 
five-barred gate with spikes at top, and furze bushes on 
either side. It is not any known tongue, it is Benthamese, 
or perhaps a variety of those that sprung up in the hotbed of 
Mr. Irving's chapel. One cannot defend its obscurity, as 
Balzac did that of Tertullian, by saying that it resembles the 
darkness of polished ebony, which throws a certain splendour 
around. Through such impediments, few men would think 
of forcing their way, any more than of breaking their teeth 
with a hickory nut for the sake of the kernel. 

There are conversational dogs, who by making a dead 
point, as if they were about to start a bon-mot, will induce 
you to cock your ear and prepare for an explosion of 
laughter ; after which they leave you miserably in the lurch. 
Of this a notable instance was afforded by the late facetious 
Jack Taylor, who became somewhat forgetful towards the 
close of his career. "Did I ever tell you," he inquired, 
" of a famous good thing I once said to Du B ? He 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 159 

was alluding to my former occupation of an oculist, in which 
he said it was no wonder I had failed, since a man must 
have been blind indeed before he would apply to me. — 
Well, Sir, that was very good ; but I blew him completely 
to atoms by a retort I made. I can't recollect just now 
what it was, but you may depend upon it, my dear friend, 
it was a most capital thing, and made a great laugh at 
the time ! * 

A man must be reduced to great straits before he can 
think of living upon the good things he has forgotten. 

FAME, Literary — being partially known to-day and uni- 
versally forgotten to-morrow. To what does this posthumous 
existence amount ? At most it is but a question of one small 
link in the circular chain of eternity. He who writes in a 
modern language, is but the suicide of his own fame : scrib- 
bling on the sand what the next wave of time will obliterate ; 
he gets a short respite, not a pardon from oblivion ! Every- 
thing is incessantly passing away, the physical and the moral, 
the corporeal and the intellectual ; — the very elements of 

nature are subject to decay. Not that this would affect 

as an author, for in his writings there is little or nothing of 
nature. In one sense they are eternal — " For he who reads 
them, reads them to no end." Literary fame is more easily 
caught than kept. If you do nothing you are forgotten, and 
if you write and fail, your former success is thrown in your 
teeth. He who has a reputation to maintain has a wild beast 
in his house, which he must constantly feed, or it will feed 
upon him. So indifferent was Fontenelle to fame and repu- 
tation of all sorts, that he is recorded to have said, " If I 
had a paper in my bureau, the disclosure of which would 
make my name infamous and detestable for ever, I would not 
take the trouble to destroy it, provided I could be quite sure 
that it would never appear in my lifetime." This is pushing 



i6o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

indifference into a heartless misanthropy. What can a man 
have cared for others, who cared so little for himself? 

FANATIC — a religionist, whose irreligious gloom and 
intolerance are generally ascribable to disease, either bodily 
or mental. We are told in Scripture, not to be as the hypo- 
crites, who disfigure their faces ; but the sour miserables, 
who go groaning and scowling about this beautiful and cheerful 
world, if they do not literally infringe the precept, seem to 
steep their countenances in vinegar, as if to preserve them 
from contagion, and, wearing their hearts in their looks, 
frown both upon God and man. They are the order of men. 
of whom Lord Bacon says, that they "bring down the Holy 
Ghost in the shape of a vulture or a raven, instead of in the 
likeness of a dove ; and hang from the bark of a Christian 
Church the flag of a bark of pirates and assassins." They 
appear to think with their spleen, write with their gall, and 
pray with their bile ; no wonder, therefore, that they are per- 
petually canting about " the beauty of sickness." It is at 
these seasons that the new light flashes upon their cracked 
sculls ; so true is the averment of Waller, that — 

' ' The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, 
Lets in new lights thro' chinks which time has made :" 

and the wittier observation of Swift, that — " When our earthly 
tabernacles are disordered and desolate, shaken and out of 
repair, the spirit delights to dwell within them ; as houses 
are said to be haunted when they are forsaken and gone to 
decay." The countenances acquired by the mistaken endea- 
vours of these men to insure themselves against the fires of 
the next world, remind one of the brazen Gorgons and 
chimaeras nailed upon our houses, as insurance plates against 
fire in this world . Some, like the Phcenix, tell us that they 
are seeking regeneration amid flames and agony ; some, like 






OR, HEADS AND TALES. 161 

the Pelican, are emblems of the tortures they inflict upon 
their own breast. 

Fanaticism's flame arises, 
Like a volcano's, by surprises, 
Foretells its coming by a grumbling 
Or inward motion, stir and rumbling, 
Breaks out at length, and roars hubbubish, 
Throwing up endless loads of rubbish, 
With gleams that only show the gloom, 
And heat that serves but to consume ; 
And when its baleful sulphurous light 
Has shed around a withering blight, 
The fierce, but evanescent flashes, 
Subside again in smoke and ashes. 

FANATICISM — the daughter of ignorance, and the 
mother of infidelity. Like every other excess, fanaticism 
provokes a reaction ; the cold fit of spiritual sickness succeeds 
the hot one ; and the patients forgetting that the reverse of 
wrong is not always right, swing to the contrary extreme of 
profligacy and irreligion. Our English puritans, with their 
ascetical bigotry, generated the profane licentiousness of 
Charles the Second's reign, just as the intolerant spirit, and 
invidious splendours of the French Hierarchy, provoked that 
anti-religious fanaticism which swept away both the throne 
and the altar. These are examples from which our Irvingites 
and our bench of bishops might equally draw instruction, if 
the voice of the past were not as -an unknown tongue to 
both parties. 

FASHION — a power as invisible and as despotic as the 
grand Lama of Thibet. It is said she is a goddess, but no 
one has ever seen her face, though all aspire to be acquainted 
with her Proteus forms. Her mandates, of which the origin 
is utterly unknown, are nevertheless understood and com- 



i6 2 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

municated by some inscrutable instinct, and obeyed with a 
still more inexplicable and unenquiring submission. The 
rich and the independent are the most eager to become her 
abject slaves ; and as spaniels are the most fawning, when 
worst treated, so do her votaries delight in their idol, in pro- 
portion as her reign is tyrannical, her fancies capricious, and 
her tastes preposterous. In the service of this fickle and 
ungrateful despot, who casts off her most faithful followers, 
unless they will blindly conform to her ever-changing vaga- 
ries, the timid and delicate willingly encounter pain, the 
indolent inconvenience and labour, the parsimonious expense. 
Many leave the tradesman and the tax-gatherer unpaid, that 
they may voluntarily tax themselves to supply offerings to 
this mysterious goddess, who finds her strongest supporters 
among the weak, her most faithful adherents among the 
inconstant, her warmest admirers among those who admire 
nothing but themselves. One would not object to the pre- 
valent notion that whatever is fashionable is right, if our 
rulers of the mode would contrive that whatever is right 
should be fashionable. 

FAVOURITES — persons undervalued by the many be- 
cause they are over-valued by one. — Hatred, however, of 
favourites is only the love of favour. We dislike them, not 
because they are unworthy of their elevation, but because we 
ourselves cannot attain it. Even where their demerits may 
justify our censure, it proceeds from envy rather than an ab- 
stract sense of rectitude. In like manner the justice which 
we refuse to great men when living, and willingly concede to 
them after death, does not emanate from our love of their 
virtues, but from our hatred of those who have succeeded to 
their high offices. We are not less liberal of our praise when 
it can do no good, than of our abuse when it can annoy and 
injure. For an exemplification of this double injustice, we 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 163 

may refer to some of our critics. In proportion as they low- 
ered an author beneath his fair standard while living, they 
will raise him above it after death, in order to make his sur- 
vivors look little. Their generosity is all posthumous : they 
tear the laurels from your head to hang them on your tomb ; 
they pick your pocket to pay you in post obits ; your wind- 
ing-sheet is the only one with which they find no fault ; they 
accelerate your death, and then do their best to make you 
live. 

" Lafaveur" says La Bruyere, " met Vhomme au dessus de 
ses egaux, et sa chute au dessous? 

FEAR — a real evil often created by the anticipation of an 
imaginary one. As we can but be frightened when the danger 
arrives, our previous terrors are but so much unnecessary 
addition to the annoyance. They who are most afraid of a 
cold, or the cholera, are the most likely to catch them : so it 
is with many other evils, mental as well as bodily. Like the 
nettle, they only sting the timid ; grasp them firmly and they 
are innocuous. Fly from them and they pursue you ; face 
them and they are gone. " The fear of ill exceeds the ill we 
fear," and there are circumstances in which men have been 
known to rush headlong into danger, in order to get rid of 
the intolerable apprehension of it. This is to be terrified out 
of terror. — Fear is a prodigious magnifier, especially where it 
has been excited by any unusual object. No traveller ever 
saw a small wolf; no landsman ever experienced a gale at 
sea that did not appear to be a tornado : every thing is com- 
parative. Fear, in short, makes us imitate the silly wheatear, 
who flies into the fowler's snare, in order to avoid the shadow 
of a passing cloud. There are occasions, however, upon 
which no man should fear Fear, for it is the most potent of 
moralists. 

What anchorites — as my punning friend T. H. justly ob- 

M 2 



164 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

serves — we all became in England, when our stomachs were 
literally turned by the fear of the cholera. Esculent vege- 
tables were pronounced uneatable — even the tailors forswore 
cabbage : people looked black upon green-peas, and eschewed 
with horror the salads they once chewed with pleasure. As 
to fruits, it was fruitless to put them on the table : the dessert 
was deserted; every apple was a forbidden one; currants 
were no longer current ; it was dangerous to pare a pear, and 
still more so to pine for pine. Some forsook their French 
wines, and took to port, as the only safe harbour; others 
gave up their spirits at the very moment when they most 
wanted to keep them up ; and a few paid more than usual 
attention to their temper, because they had been cautioned 
against every thing liable to turn sour. 

An inveterate dram-drinker being told that the cholera 
with which he was attacked was incurable, and that he would 
speedily be removed to a world of pure spirits, replied, "Well, 
that's a comfort at all events, for it's very difficult to get any 
in this world." 

FEE, Doctor's — often the purchase-money for that which 
the vendor cannot sell. See Fee Simple. A certain Escu- 
lapian, never known to refuse his golden honorarium, not 
having received it one morning from a patient whom he had 
been long attending, affected to be searching about very ear- 
nestly upon the floor. " What are you looking for, Doctor?" 
inquired the sick man. " For my fee," was the reply; " not 
finding it in my hand, I suspect I must have dropped it." 
"No, Doctor, no; you have made a small mistake; it is I 
who have dropped it !" 

FEUDALISM — holding lands by tenure of military ser- 
vice, and thus perpetuating war and usurpation. The spirit 
and principle of the feudal system being that. of the many for 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 165 

the few, its main pillars are the supremacy of the sword — 
primogeniture — hereditary nobility — and despotic monarchy. 
Such are the distinguishing features of the dark ages. The 
spirit of the present era is federalism, commerce, peace, the 
principle of the few for the many, and the attainment of the 
greatest possible happiness for the greatest possible number, 
which is silently but surely leading to the modification of 
primogeniture, the probable suppression, at no distant period, 
of hereditary legislators, and the encompassment of limited 
monarchy with republican institutions. England, France, 
Spain, and Portugal, are assuming the federal form, while the 
northern states of Europe retain the feudalism, which they 
were the first to inflict upon the south. 

FICTION, Works ofi — Among other objections to these 
fascinating productions, it has been urged that they create a 
habit of feeling pity or indignation, without affording us an 
opportunity to relieve distress, or resist oppression, and by 
thus awakening our sympathies to imaginary claims, dispose 
them to slumber when called upon by real ones. The heart, 
it is argued, may be softened till it is hardened, as there are 
metals which acquire a greater induration the oftener they 
are melted. This ingenious theory is more plausible than 
true. All our benevolent sympathies will be corroborated by 
exercise, even when not called forth by any real object, as the 
archer will strengthen his arm by the practice of shooting 
into the air, and the soldier by engaging in sham-fights learns 
how to conduct himself in real ones. To suppose that fig- 
ments weaken our susceptibility to facts, is to imagine that 
dreams will unfit us for waking realities, and that smoke is 
more tangible than solids. If the maintainer of this theory 
will request some kind friend to throw at his head the most 
pathetic volume ever written, it may safely be predicted that 
if it misses him, will make a less sensible 



166 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

impression upon his feelings, than the substance, if it hits 
him. 

FLATTERY, see Flummery. — The hocus-pocus non- 
sense with which our ears are sometimes cajoled, in order 
that we maybe more effectually bamboozled and deceived. 
Unbounded is the respect and politeness with which the 
practised adulator throws dust in your eyes, when he wants 
to pick your pocket, or to make a fool of you. A man's 
flattery, to be really good, ought not only to be as keen as his 
sword, but as polished. By no means is it so easy a weapon 
to wield as many people imagine : it is like a flail, which if 
not adroitly used, will box your own ears, instead of tickling 
those of the corn. Let it be taken for granted, that while 
many women will accept a compliment to their beauty at the 
expense of their understanding, very few will relish a compli- 
ment to their talents if it derogate from their personal charms. 

Lady G , whose ten lustres have somewhat dimmed the 

lustre of her attractions, consented in a Parisian party to 
assist in getting up an extemporaneous Proverbe, and to 
appear as Calypso. In answer to the compliments she re- 
ceived at the conclusion, she declared that she had done her 
best, but added, that to represent Calypso properly, one 
should be young and handsome. " Not at all," said an old 
General, wishing to be very polite, " your ladyship is a proof 
to the contrary; nothing could look better from the further 
end of the Saloon, and nothing could be better acted: as to 
youth and beauty, the distance supplies all that." " In that 
case, General ! I wonder that you do not always keep at a 
distance," was the retort. 

FLOWERS — the terrestrial stars that bring down heaven 
to earth, and carry up our thoughts from earth to heaven : — 
the poetry of the Creator, written in beauty and fragrance. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 167 

" He who does not love flowers," says Ludwig Tieg, a Ger- 
man writer, " has lost all fear and love of God." Another 
German author defines woman as something between a 
flower and an angel. 

FOOL. — The Dandy reader may please to see Looking- 
glass. Folly, nevertheless, has found other defenders than 
the author of the Encomium Morice, for it has been seriously 
maintained by a modern writer, that none but a fool will 
attempt to live without folly, and that the greatest of all 
follies is to be wiser than others. Let the fool then be com- 
forted ; he was never guilty of this absurdity. 

FORGIVENESS — is not always the noblest revenge for 
an injury, since it may proceed from spite, rather than from 
a generous forbearance. " I never used revenge," says Lord 
Herbert, of Cherbury, — "as leaving it alway to God, who, 
the less I punish mine enemies, will inflict so much the more 
punishment on them." Perhaps his lordship had been read" 
ing the 25th chapter of Proverbs, where it is said, " If thine 
enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he be thirsty, 
give him water to drink, for then shalt thou heap coals of fire 
upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee." This may 
be questionable morality, but it is at all events better to do 
good with a bad motive, than evil with a good one ; for a 
virtuous action may benefit many, whereas a wrong feeling 
can only implicate the single individual from whom it ema- 
nates. In the former case, too, the example may be imitated 
without the unworthy impulse ; as in the latter it may be fol- 
lowed without the redeeming incitement. 

FORTUNE — a blind goddess, who sometimes bestows 
her smiles upon fools, in order to reconcile men of sense to 
her frowns; and often runs from the proud, to revisit the 



168 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

wretched. — A man of fortune is one who is so unfortunate as 
to be released from the necessity of employment for the mind, 
and exercise for the body, the two great constituents of health 
and happiness ; who has every thing to fear and nothing to 
hope ; and who consequently pays in anxiety and ennui more 
than the value of his money. Fortune is painted blind, in 
order to show her impartiality; but when she cheers the 
needy with hope, and depresses the wealthy with distrust, 
methinks she confers the richest boon on the poorest man, 
and injures those upon whom she bestows her favours. 

Te colimus, Fortuna, Deam, is, nevertheless, the motto to 
almost every man's conduct, however he may disclaim the 
confession with his lips ; and few have a more ready excuse 
for their homage than the Grecian sage, who being asked 
why philosophers always ran after rich men, while rich men 
never courted philosophers, replied, " Because the latter 
know that they want money, while the former do not know 
that they want wisdom." Who so independent of the blind 
goddess as the ruined gamester, when he exclaimed, after a 
run of ill luck, " O spiteful Fortune ! you may make me 
lose as much as you please, but I defy you to make me 
pay ! " 

Dryden evinces no great respect for this deity, when he 
exclaims — 

" Fortune a goddess is to fools alone, 
The wise are always masters of their own." 

FORTUNE-TELLER — a pickpocket, discerning enough 
to limit his or her depredations to gulls and simpletons. The 
girl who told the gipsy by whom she had been promised a 
large fortune, that she might deduct another sixpence, pro- 
vided she would realize her prediction, and pay over the 
remainder of the money at once, little dreamt that she was 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 169 

translating a thought of old Eunius, the Roman poet, who 
says, speaking of fortune tellers — 

" Quibus divitias pollicentur, ab iis drachmam petunt, 
De divitiis deducant drachmam, reddant coetera." 

It is remarkable that in our aspirations after wealth, we 
never betake ourselves to the wealthy, who might be the 
most likely to communicate the secret of its acquisition; 
but rather lend ourselves to the delusions of the ragged and 
the starving, whose poverty is the surest proof that they are 
totally ignorant of the ?7iagnmn arcanum. One must have 
the ears of Midas to listen to those Avho pretend to possess 
his touch. 

FOX-HUNTING — tossing up for lives with a fox, and 
running the risk of being in at your own death, instead of 
that of the animal you are pursuing. A fox-hunter lays a very 
fair wager when he pits his own head against an animal's 
tail. Bull, bear, and badger-baiting are prohibited by the 
magistrates, if not by law: there is a society for the preven- 
tion of cruelty to animals, the secretary of which evinces a 
laudable activity in punishing drovers, coachmen, and car- 
men, who are unmerciful towards their cattle ; but gentle- 
men may kill and mangle game, and put stags, hares, and 
foxes, to a lingering and cruel death, without molestation or 
impeachment. This may appear an unjust and invidious 
distinction ; but it must be recollected, that the plebeians are 
naturally ignorant, and torment their animals to urge them 
forward, or with some other appearance of excuse ; whereas 
the gentry are, or ought to be, well-informed, and perpetrate 
their various cruelties solely for their own pastime and 
amusement ! 

If a fox-hunter possess the accompaniments of being a 
toper and a gambler, he may be said to pass his mornings 



i 7 o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

in running through other people's estates, and his nights in 
running through his own. 

FREETHINKER.— This word, by a strange abuse of 
terms, has come to be synonymous with a libertine and a 
contemner of religion, whereas the best security, both for 
morality and piety, is a perfect freedom of thought. If it be 
a reproach to be a freethinker, it must be a merit to think 
like a slave; and mental bondage, always more degrading 
than that of the body, must be more honourable than the 
liberty of both ! The right of examining what we ought to 
believe, is the foundation of Protestantism, and to deny it, is 
to revert to the Popish claim of infallibility. We may as 
well suppose a man can reason without thinking at all, as 
reason without thinking freely ; and it has been maintained, 
even by dignitaries of the Church, that a verbal, uninquiring 
assent even to a truth, is less meritorious than the con- 
scientious error which is the result of patient investigation. 
If thought is to be restricted, or excluded altogether from 
the consideration of the most important of all subjects, it 
necessarily follows, that idiots, and irrational beings, are as 
competent to decide upon them as the most enlightened 
philosophers ; a reductio ad absurditm, which we commend 
to the attention of the mind-chainers. Those are the real free- 
thinkers, using the word in its most invidious sense, who 
imagine that the unshackled exercise of man's noblest and 
most distinguishing attribute, can ever lead to any other 
results than a still more deep, and more soul-felt conviction 
of the greatness, goodness, and glory of its divine Giver. 
For myself, I desire no better epitaph, in this respect, than 
the words of Juvenal — 

" Civis erat qui libera posset 
Verba animi proferre, et vitam inpendere vero." 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 171 

FRIEND, Real — one who will tell you of your faults 
and follies in prosperity, and assist you with his hand and 
heart in adversity. — See Phoenix, and Unicorn. 

Strange as it may sound, we are sometimes rather dis- 
posed to choose our friends from the unworthy than the 
worthy ; for though it is difficult to love those whom we do 
not esteem, it is a greater difficulty to love those whom we 
esteem much more than ourselves. A perfect friendship re- 
quires equality, even in virtue. He who has merited friends, 
will seldom be without them ; for attachment is not so rare 
as the desert that attracts and secures it. 

Some there are, who, with an apparent zeal, vindicate their 
friends from all their little peccadilloes, whitewash them as 
carefully as they can, and then knock them on the head by 
lamenting their addiction to some gross impropriety. This 
resembles the conduct of the Roman priests, who, when an 
ox was not completely white, chalked over the dark spots, 
and leading him up to the altar, made him an immediate 
sacrifice. 

Favours, and especially pecuniary ones, are generally fatal 
to friendship ; for our pride will ever prompt us to lower the 
value of the gift by diminishing that of the donor. Ingra- 
titude is an effort to recover our own esteem, by getting rid 
of our esteem for our benefactor, whom we look upon as 
a sort of toothdrawer, that has cured us of one pain by 
inflicting another. 

As friendship must be founded on mutual esteem, it cannot 
long exist among the vicious ; for we soon find ill company 
to be like a dog, which dirts those the most whom it loves 
the best. After Lady E. L., and her female companion, had 
defied public opinion for some time, her ladyship was obliged 
to say — " Well, now, my dear friend, we must part for ever ; 
for you have no character left, and I have not enough for 
two." 



i 7 2 THE TIN TRUMPET ; 

FRIENDS. — There may be the same vitiated taste in the 
choice of friends, as of food. Many who like their game to 
be high and rank, seem to choose their associates for the 
same recommendation ; not objecting to those whose repu- 
tations are in the worst odour. Others lay the foundation of 
future quarrels by forming inconsiderate and incongruous 
attachments, — a union, as Cowper wittily observes — 

" Like Hand-in-Hand insurance plates, 
Which unavoidably creates 

The thoughts of conflagration." 

A fashionable friend is one who will dine with you, game 
with you, walk or ride out with you, borrow money of you, 
escort your wife to public places — if she be handsome, stand 
by and see you fairly shot, if you happen to be engaged in a 
duel, and slink away and see you fairly clapped in a prison, 
if you experience a reverse of fortune. — Such a man is like 
the shadow of the sun-dial, which appears in fine weather, 
and vanishes when there comes a rainy day. 

People are always pleased with those who partake plea- 
sure with them ; and hence there is a maudlin sympathy 
among brother topers, — but this is fellowship, not friend- 
ship. Never was the term more thoroughly desecrated than 
by the heartless Horace Walpole, who, in one of his letters, 
says, "If one of my friends happens to die, I drive down to 
St. James's Coffee House, and bring home a new one." 

FURNITURE — inanimate society. I like appropriate 
emblems in furniture, though I would not adopt the pedantry 
of Mr. Hope in its full extent, and make every joint stool, 
by its classical and hieroglyphical mysteries, puzzle the head 
instead of supporting the body. Where pleasant associations 
can be awakened, — and I would admit none of a contrary 
tendency, — why should not our chairs, tables, and side- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 173 

boards be made to enhance the attractions and the resources 
of home, by ministering to a refined taste, and stimulating 
the imagination ? To study how every decoration may ex- 
press an emblem, and even to pun in marble, by sculpturing 
horses' heads beside a bust of Philip, because that word 
signifies, in Greek, a lover of horses, is a pitiful conceit ; but 
it is pleasant, nevertheless, to impart to mahogany some of 
the properties of mind, to lift upholstery out of its materiality, 
and make it the medium for conveying the fancy through the 
whole range of time and space. 

FUTURITY — what we are to be, determined by what 
we have been. — An inscrutable mystery, of which we can 
only guess at a solution, by referring to the present and the 
past. These assure us, by millions of incontestable proofs, 
that the benevolent Creator sympathises with our happiness ; 
then he must sympathise still more tenderly with our suffer- 
ings. To suppose that He would scatter all sorts of delights 
around us in this evanescent world, and yet doom the great 
mass of mankind to everlasting anguish in the next, is an 
irreconcileable contradiction. The earth, upon which we 
are merely flitting passengers, is everywhere enamelled with 
flowers, equally exquisite for varied beauty and perfume, 
but useless, except for the purpose of diffusing pleasure ; 
and yet our eternal abode is to be horrent with fire and 
agony ! The best way of combating the terrors with which 
superstition has darkened futurity, is to appeal from the 
unknown to the known, from the unseen to the visible, from 
imaginary torment to real enjoyment, from the frightfulness 
and the stench of Tophet to the beauty of a tulip, and the 
fragrance of a rose. 



174 THE TIN TRUMPET; 



ALLOWS — a cure without being a prevention 
of crime. It is calculated, that since the sus- 
pension of bank payments, 800 human beings 
have been executed for forgery alone ! In the 
year 1832, an important improvement was 
effected in our penal code, by the entire repeal of the punish- 
ment of death, as it regarded five classes of criminals. 

It is curious to observe how, in all cases, the good sense 
and humanity of the public outstrip those of judges and 
legislators, who, being generally both hardened and blinded 
by habit, neither feel for the criminal, nor see the iniquity 
of the law. Singular inconsistency ! that many of the same 
clear-sighted and kind-hearted people, who rail against the 
severity of our code, as utterly inconsistent with the special 
injunctions and mild spirit of Christianity, will still subject 
those who differ from them in matters of faith to all the 
damnatory clauses of their vindictive creed. They are re- 
ligiously bent upon mitigating every code but the religious, 
and would alleviate the punishment of all offenders, except 
those who have committed the irremissible crime of differing 
from them in opinion. And yet, what are the comparatively 
painless three or four minutes of hanging, to an eternity of 
exquisite anguish ? Oh ! why will not men adopt the heal- 
ing, the consolatory, the blessed and blessing spirit of 
Christianity, instead of the occasional bitterness of its 
letter ? why will they not read the universe, instead of the 
perversions and anathemas of gloomy fanatics, and believe, 
that in a future state the doom, even of the guilty, will be 
measured by the wisdom, the justice, the mercy of the 
Creator, rather than by the misdeeds of the creature ? 

GAME LAWS — acts passed for the careful protection 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 175 

of birds and beasts, and the ruthless proscription of human 
beings. If these barbarous enactments, instead of proceed- 
ing from the mere caprices of tyranny, were governed by 
anything like principle and common sense, we might venture 
to ask, why one sort of wild beast or bird should be pro- 
nounced game in preference to another ? — why pigeons, and 
plovers, and weazles, should not receive that appellation, as 
well as pheasants, partridges, and hares ? — why, in short, the 
Squirearchy should not, in imitation of King John, lay a 
total interdict upon all the winged, as well as four-footed 
creatures ; while such of them as are fond of angling, 
claimed all the fishes as their exclusive privilege and pro- 
perty. There are no natural distinctions. If they have a 
right in one instance, they have a right in all, and the feres 
natures must have been meant by heaven for the sole enjoy- 
ment and amusement of sportsmen and country gentlemen^ 
who have the least need of them, and, therefore, the least 
claim to them. It was once made felony to steal a hawk ; 
and he who took its eggs, even in his own grounds, was 
liable to imprisonment for a year and a day, besides a fine at 
the King's pleasure. Hawking is no longer an amusement 
ot the gentry, and therefore, this barbarous law has been 
repealed ; but how horrible, that the lives and liberty of the 
commonalty should thus depend upon the fashion of a day, 
and the occasional pastimes of that narrow class, who dub 
themselves the gentry. What remains of our game laws is 
conceived in the same atrocious spirit, and is too monstrous 
to endure much longer against the growing knowledge of the 
people, and a reformed Parliament. 

In the dark ages, when rude warriors could find no other 
employment in peace than to make field sports serve as a 
sort of apprenticeship to the arts of war, there might be 
some excuse for an eager addiction to them ; but in these 
days, when even the Squirearchy can read and write, when, 



176 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

besides the whole unlimited range of intellectual pursuit, 
they may command exercises and amusements of all sorts, 
when some have magisterial functions to discharge, and 
all may occupy themselves in works of local charity, and 
parochial or county utility, to affirm that they have no 
resources and no inducement to reside upon their estates, if 
they may not worry poor hares to death, and mangle and 
destroy partridges, is to stultify themselves, to confess that 
they are at once weak, and cruel, and utterly worthless 
members of society. 

Then comes the pithy question, why our rural districts 
should be disturbed, demoralised, and stained with blood ; 
why the fields of the industrious husbandman should be 
overrun and damaged, and his fences broken down ; why 
the crops of the farmer should be wasted by the depreda- 
tions of game, against whose ravages it is punishable to 
defend himself ? why our prisons and transport-ships should 
be crowded with victims, in order to afford occasional pas- 
time to a sporting Squirearchy, who stand self-convicted 
as the idlest, the most unfeeling, the least meritorious class 
of the whole community ? 

The good sense and humanity of the lower orders have 
induced them to forego bear and badger-baiting altogether ; 
bull-baiting and cock-throwing are falling fast into desue- 
tude, and most of their other cruel pastimes are discon- 
tinued ; an improvement which, it is to be hoped, will not 
be altogether thrown away upon those patrician sportsmen, 
who ought to have set the example which they are now 
called upon to follow. 

GAMING, see Beggar and Suicide. — The gamester 
begins by being a dupe, speedily becomes a knave, and 
generally ends his career as a pauper. A dice-box, like that 
of Pandora, is full of all evils, with a deceitful Hope at the 



OR HEADS AND TALES. 177 

bottom, which generally turns into Despair. There is but 
one good throw upon the dice/which is, to throw them away. 

GENIUS— a natural aptitude to perform well and easily 
that which others can do but indifferently, and with pains. 
Locke has exploded the theory of innate ideas. The mind 
of a newly-born infant is as a new mirror, which, with a 
capacity to reflect all objects, is, in itself, objectless. There 
is nothing innate or original in either case, except the 
capacity to reflect, which will vary according to the peculiar 
construction of the mind or the mirror; some presenting 
objects with a true or a false, with a beautifying or a dis- 
coloured and unbecoming hue ; while others will enlarge, 
diminish, distort, or absolutely reverse the forms presented 
to them. These different tendencies of minds, originally 
idealess, constitute the diversities of human character, or 
form what is commonly called genius. 

GHOSTS. — There is more meaning and philosophy than 
at first sight appears in Coleridge's answer to Lady Beau- 
mont, when she asked him whether he believed in ghosts — 
" O no, Madam, I have seen too many to believe in them." 
He had sense enough to see that his senses had been 
deceived. 

GLORY, Military — sharing with plague, pestilence, and 
famine, the honour of destroying your species ; and partici- 
pating with Alexander's horse the distinction of transmitting 
your name to posterity. 

GLUTTONY.— Pope's line— 

" Is there no help then, Helluo, bring the jowl," 
was suggested by what Athenasus records of Philoxenus, the 



173 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

Dithyrambic poet, who, having nearly completed, at one 
meal, an enormous polypus, was seized with convulsive 
spasms, and being told his last hour was at hand, exclaimed 
— " Since Charon and Atropos are come to call me away 
from my delicacies, it is best to leave nothing behind, so 
bring the remainder of the polypus." According to the same 
veracious author, Cambles, being given to gastromargism, 
ate up his wife, and in the morning, found her hands in his 
throat ! Many a poor man now-a-days, when he finds the 
hands of his shrewish wife in his throat, would be glad to 
dispose of the rest of her body after the fashion of Cambles. 

GNATS. — " To what base uses may we not return ! " 
exclaims Hamlet, — "Imperial Caesar dead and turned to 
clay," &c. It is a humiliating fact, which cannot be denied ; 
but, on the other hand, there are many forms of matter, 
which, in their decomposition, are as much elevated, as the 
ingredients of Caesar's body were temporarily degraded. 
Gnats, for instance, and other annoying insects devoured by 
birds, are ultimately converted into music ; their importunate 
buzzing being but an inharmonious prelude, or tuning of 
instruments for the warbling of the nightingale, the cheerful 
song of the thrush, and the full concert of the winged 
choristers, who turn the summer air into melody. Our own 
daily food, ministering to the spirit of which the body is only 
the shrine, may be sublimised into wit, wisdom, and poetry. 
In the economy of nature, there is a perpetual interchange of 
life and death, of mind and matter. We draw existence and 
intellect from the earth ; we return to it, and contribute, by 
resolving into our first elements, to supply life and intellect 
to our successors. 

GOETHE — said that he considered no work complete, 
unless it involved some mystery which the author left un- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 179 

explained, for the express purpose of stimulating the curiosity 
and the faculties of the reader. In this confession we have 
a key to his Faust, to much of the Kantian philosophy, and 
to a large portion of the German literature in general. The 
mystical — the obscure — the enigmatical, where there is no 
real riddle to be solved, as in the case of Faust, Coleridge's 
Christabel, and similar productions, are so much sheer im- 
pertinence, and one feels a contemptuous pity for those 
laborious GEdipi, who puzzle their brains in endeavouring to 
solve the imaginary enigma of a sham Sphinx. German 
writers and readers seem to find a delight in thus stultifying 
each other, but it is foreign to the plain, straightforward, 
intelligible, useful, matter-of-fact character of England, — and 
therefore is it, that German literature will never become 
popular among us. Goethe — the Shakspeare and Voltaire 
of Germany — is little known in this country, except by his 
Werther and his Faust. 

GOOD, in things evil. — 

' ' ' There is a soul of goodness in things evil, 
Would men observingly distil it out.' 

" So with equal wisdom and good-nature, does Shakspeare 
make one of his characters exclaim. — Suffering gives strength 
to sympathy. Hate of the particular may have a foundation 
in love for the general. The lowest and most wilful vice 
may plunge deeper out of a regret of virtue. Even in envy 
may be discerned something of an instinct of justice, some- 
thing of a wish to see universal fair-play, and things on a 
level." Leigh Hunt, from one of whose delightful papers in 
the Indicator this passage is extracted, might easily have 
expanded his idea, and illustrated it by further examples ; 
for while body and soul retain their alliance, their joint off- 
spring will ever bear a likeness to either parent. " The web 

N 2 



iSo THE TIN TRUMPET; 

of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together ; our 
virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not ; and 
our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our 
virtues." To begin with the latter ; — what we call patriotism, 
is often a blind and mischievous prejudice against other 
nations, rather than an enlightened preference of our own. 
Love is as often sensual as sentimental. Parental affection, 
where it is not instinctive, is only reflected self-love. Charity 
not seldom proceeds from pride, from our desire to get rid of 
an uneasy sensation, or from the hope of being repaid with 
usurious interest what we "lend to the Lord." Dispensing 
justice may spring from the thirst of domination over our 
fellow creatures ; and religion itself, even when sincere, may 
be instigated by that selfish regard to future reward, which 
has been termed — other- worldliness. 

As our virtues are tainted occasionally by degrading 
associations, so may our vices be mingled with redeeming 
ones. Conjugal jealousy and the hatred of a rival, spring 
from the intensity of our love. Revenge, which, like envy, is 
an instinct of justice, does but take into its own hands the 
execution of that natural law which preceded the social. 
Avarice is only prudence and economy pushed to excess ; 
intemperance has its source in fellowship and hospitality; 
and wasteful extravagance springs from an unregulated 
generosity. These considerations are not urged to encourage 
moral Pyrrhonism and doubt ; still less to confound the 
barriers of right and wrong ; but to inculcate humility as 
well as forbearance, to teach us that we should neither be too 
overweening in estimating our own virtues, nor too severe in 
condemning the failings of others. 

GOODNESS— a synonyme for Deity. "When all the 
good of a system," says G. L. Le Sage, of Geneva, " can 
easily be traced to general principles, and when all the evils 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. i8r 

appear to be exceptions, closely connected with some good, 
the excess being evidently, though, perhaps, but in a small 
degree, on the side of good, the contriver must be regarded 
as beneficent." If the existence of pain and evil render it 
difficult for a reflecting man to be an optimist, there is no 
reason why he should not, at all events, be an agathist. It 
is an observation of Dr. Johnson, that as the greatest liar 
tells more truth than falsehood, so may it be said of the 
worst man, that he does more good than evil. 

"When a common soldier," observes Adam Smith, "is 
ordered upon a forlorn hope, his courage, and his sense of 
duty, make him march to his doom with alacrity ; but how 
few are philosophers enough to imitate this brave devotion, 
when they are ordered out upon the forlorn hope of the 
universe." The moral courage that will face obloquy in a 
good cause, is a much rarer gift than the bodily valour that 
will confront death in a bad one. 

With a double vigilance should we watch our actions, 
when we reflect, that good and bad ones are never childless ; 
and that, in both cases, the offspring goes beyond the parent, 
— every good begetting a better, every bad a worse. 

GOOSE — a bird, and word of reproach, but I know not 
why. M. de Cottu, the French jurist, who came to this 
country to digest our laws and our dinners, and who pro- 
nounced our cuisine to be fade et bornee, records, with an 
affectation of delicate disgust, that even at decent tables he 
had often seen a goose ! — Gadso ! I can easily believe it, if 
he sat opposite the mirror. Why this calumniated fowl 
should be a byword for ridicule in our discourse, or an 
object of abomination at polite tables, is an enigma, which it 
might puzzle CEdipus to solve. Every one knows that 
the Roman State was saved by the cackling of geese ; a 
hint which has by no means been thrown away upon some 



182 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

of our own short-witted and long-winded senators. Among 
the Romans, the gander and his spouse were a favourite and 
a fashionable dish'; but learned commentators maintain, that 
the particular brood to which the commonwealth was so 
much indebted was preserved, as well as all its immediate 
descendants, with the utmost care ; a circumstance which 
must have been much deplored by the epicures of that day, 
since it became impossible to have a Capitol goose for 
dinner. Then, as now, the little giblets were thought great 
delicacies, and good livers deemed the livers good, as 
appears by the following extract from Francis's Horace, 
b. ii. sat. 8 : — 

' ' And a white gander's liver, 
Stuffed fat with figs, bespoke the curious giver." 

Whence, also, we may see that their epicurism extended 
even to the colour. A modern white gander is a rara avis. 
Queen Elizabeth was cutting up a goose, when she learnt 
that the Spanish armada had been cut up by a Drake. Why, 
then, should a bird, ennobled by so many historical, and 
endeared by so many culinary recommendations, be treated 
with scorn and contumely ? If the reader sympathise with 
the writer in wishing to see some zealous, though tardy 
reparation, made by a featherless biped to the biped who 
supplies us with feathers, he will peruse with a kindred com- 
placency and indulgence the following 

ODE TO A GOOSE, 

VVritteft after dinner on the Feast of St. Michael, 

STROPHE I. 

O bird most rare ! although thou art 
Uncommon common on a common, 
What man or woman 
Can in one single term impart 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 183 

A proper name for thee ? — An ancient Roman 
Would answer — " Anser." Sure I am that no man, 
Knowing thy various attributes, would choose 
To call thee Goose ! 

ANTISTROPHE I. 

No, Goose ! thou art no Goose. Well stuffed with sage 
And titillating things both dead and living, 
For ever art thou giving 
Solace to man in life's brief pilgrimage. 

EPODE I. 

Jove's eagle wielding the avenging thunder, 
Is but a folio hawk, a bird of plunder. 

Minerva's owl, 

(Both are foul fowl !) 
Shunning the light, should ne'er have been preferrid 
To rank as Wisdom's bird. — 
As for the young and stately swan, 
A Scottish lawyer is the man 

To sing its praises. 
/ am no writer to the cygnet — so, 

Avoiding further periphrases, 
For thee alone, O Goose ! my verse shall flow. 

STROPHE 11. 
O bird of Morpheus ! half our lives are sped, 
(Ay, and the happiest too) upon a bed 
Stuffed with thy feathers. On thy breast 

Thou hushest us to rest, 

As if we were thy goslings, 

Till we forget life's hubble-bubble, 
Its toil and trouble, 
Its crossings and its jostlings, 
And borne in dreams to empyrean latitudes, 
Revel in ecstasies and bright beatitudes. 

ANTISTROPHE II. 
Churls that we are ! what snoozing hum 

Ascends to thee? — what paeans, what adorings? 
Our mouths, perchance, are open, but they're dumb : 
Our sole harangues 
Are nasal twangs, 
And all our gratitude consists of snorings. 



iS-j THE TIN TRUMPET; 

EPODE II. 

Bird of Apollo ! worthy to pluck grass 

On the Parnassian mountain, 

Beside the classic fountain 
Of Hippocrene, what Muse with thee can class, 
To whose inspiring wing we owe 

All that the poets past have writ ; 
From whose ungathered wings shall flow 
All our whole store of future wit ? 

Well may'st thou strut, 

Proud of thy pens uncut, 

Which shall cut jokes, 

In after times, for unborn folks ;— ■ 
Well may'st thou plume thyself upon thy plumage — all 

Is erudite and intellectual, 

Each wing a cyclopaedia, fraught 

With genius multiform, a world of thought ! 

Ah ! when thou putt'st thy head 

Beneath that wing to bed, 
In future libraries thou tak'st a nap, 
And dream'st of Paternoster Row, mayhap ! 
What are they dreaming of, that they forget 

(The publishing and scribbling set) 

To apotheosise thee, Goose ! 
As the tenth Muse ? 

ANTISTROPHE III. 

And then the darling driblets, 

That constitute thy giblets, 

Whether in soup or stew'd, 
O ! what delectable and dainty food ! 
Full of my subject ('twas my dinner dish,) 

No wonder that I feel all over goosy, 

Fired with what Braham calls entusimusy, 
So much so, I could almost wish, 

If fate were nothing loth, 

To be a Goose instead of man. 
" Be doubly happy on thy present plan," 

(Methinks the reader cries,) 

" And thank the favouring destinies, 

For now thou'rt both / " 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 185 

GOUT — sometimes the father's sin visited upon the child, 
but more often the child of our own sins visiting its father. 
A man of the latter stamp once asked Abernethy what he 
should do to avoid the infliction. — " Live upon a shilling a 
day— and earn it," was the reply, at once pertinent and im- 
pertinent. 

GOVERNMENT.— According to Milton, it should be the 
first object in a representative commonwealth, " to make the 
people fittest to choose, and those chosen fittest to govern." 
According to the Conservatives, the people should be de- 
frauded, as much as possible, of the elective franchise, in 
order that an oligarchy may the more easily defraud them of 
everything else. A despotic government is an inverted cone, 
resting upon a point, and liable to be toppled down by the 
smallest movement. A popular government is a pyramid, 
the firmest and most enduring of all forms. 

Government, as a science, has by no means kept pace with 
the advancement of other arts. It might be expected, that 
legislatures, like individuals, although headstrong, violent, 
and passionate, in the outset of their career, would become 
mild, moderate, and wise in their old age ; but experience 
does not justify this inference. In human nature, there are 
two leading principles, or motives of conduct, — the hope of 
reward, and the fear of punishment ; but most governments 
either address themselves exclusively to the latter, or if they 
bring the former into operation, they begin at the wrong end, 
showering titles, ribands, emoluments, honours, and distinc- 
tions upon the upper classes, who should be taught to con- 
sider virtue as its own reward, while the lower orders are 
only attempted to be influenced by pains, penalties, and 
terror. 

Were the art of government left to its official functionaries, 
it would probably be stationary, even in England ; but it is 



186 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

fortunately pushed forward on the road of improvement by 
public opinion, the power of which, developing itself through 
a free press, is becoming every day more manifest and irresis- 
tible. If there be truth in the vox fiopuli vox Dei, this must 
be the best, the most legitimate, the most hallowed of all 
authority. Every man has a voice in the formation of that 
public opinion, which confers the privileges, without incurring 
the dangers, of universal suffrage. Some, it is true, have 
more weight than others, but it is the superior influence of 
talent and information, a much better element of representa- 
tion than property, upon which the elective franchise is 
usually based. Government will have attained its perfection 
when the people, being universally educated and competent 
to judge, and the press being untaxed and unfettered, so as 
to give power and certainty to their voice, the rulers of the 
State, obeying while they govern, and following while they 
seem to lead, shall be merely the official mouthpieces of the 
national will. ' 

These, however, will be deemed the notions of a visionary; 
a beau ideal, for the realization of which good men may sigh, 
while practical ones will smile compassionately, and refer 
the experiment to the millennium. 

GRATITUDE.— If this be justly defined as "a lively 
sense of benefits to come," ingratitude is so far preferable, 
that it is free from hypocrisy and sordid motives, and releases 
the benefactor as well as the benefited. If the one be a 
calculating virtue, the other is at least a frank vice. Great 
ingratitude cannot be common, because great beneficence is 
rare, and its alleged frequency, therefore, is often a pretext 
trumped up by the parsimonious to save their pockets. To 
be deterred by such a plea from practising charity, when we 
have the means, is to commit towards heaven the very offence 
which we are imputing to our fellow-creatures. Besides, one 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 187 

man's ingratitude is not another man's ingratitude. Benefi- 
cent people are rarely grateful ; they look upon common 
favours like common politeness, as a matter of course. An 
apparent gratitude may sometimes be the sharpest revenge. 
Sir Charles Sedley, when he joined the Prince of Orange, 
said of King James the Second — " He has made my daughter 
a Countess, and I will show my gratitude by endeavouring 
to make his a Queen." It will be recollected, that Sedley's 
daughter, created Countess of Dorchester, was James's 
mistress, and that the Prince of Orange's wife, afterwards 
Queen Mary, was James's daughter. 

GRAVE — the gate through which we pass from the 
visible to the invisible world. 

" GRAVITY"— says Rochefoucauld, " is a mystery of the 
body, invented to conceal the defects of the understanding." 

GRIEFS — are like the beings that endure them, — -the 
little ones are the most clamorous and noisy; those of older 
growth, and greater magnitude, are generally tranquil, and 
sometimes silent. Our minds are like ill-hung vehicles; 
when they have little to carry, they raise a prodigious clatter, 
— when heavily laden, they neither creak nor rumble. 

GRUMBLERS — who are perpetually publishing the mal- 
treatment they have experienced, excite but little sympathy ; 
for, without going the length of Rochefoucauld's maxim, it 
may safely be maintained, that there is nothing which people 
in general bear with more equanimity than the misfortunes 
of their neighbours. It is natural that those who feel them- 
selves aggrieved, should give vent to complaint; but it 
is equally so, that their hearers should at length listen to the 
catalogue of their wrongs with indifference. 



iS8 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

" If you are treated ill and put on, 

'Tis natural to make a fuss ; 
To see it and not care a button, 

Is just as natural for us. 
Like people viewing, at a distance, 

Two persons thrown out of a casement, 
All we can do for your assistance, 

Is to afford you our amazement : — 
For an impartial looker-on 

In such disasters never chooses ; 
'Tis neither Tom, nor Will, nor John, — 

'Tis the phenomenon amuses." * 

Not to enjoy all the innocent happiness we can, is so far 
impious, that it is defrauding the Creator of that purpose in 
our creation, which we may consider to be the most congenial 
to the divine nature. 



ABIT — a second nature, which often super- 
sedes the first. The habit which enables one 
man to dispense with necessaries, may render 
superfluities indispensable to another. Ex- 
tremes touch ; he who wants no favours from 
Fortune, may be said to have obtained the very greatest that 
she can bestow, in realizing an independence which no 
changes or reverses can diminish. What king or conqueror 
can say as much ? 

The late Sir W r S g, as he hurried along the 

streets of London, had contracted a habit, whenever he met 



* Hall Stevenson's Works, vol. i. p. 120 ; a writer already forgotten, 
although he died so lately as 1785. His fables, a poor imitation o* 
Fontaine, deriving their sole interest from the politics of the day, and 
the indelicacy of his " Crazy Tales," in imitation of Chaucer and Prior, 
have hurried his productions into a quick oblivion, spite of the marvel- 
lous case of his versification, which has rarely been equalled. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 189 

any of his numerous acquaintance, of saluting them with a 
passing bow, a touch of the hat, and the words — " Sir, I 
wish you a very good morning." As High Sheriff of a county, 
it once became his duty to attend the execution of a criminal, 
when, having seen that all the preliminary arrangements 
were complete, and that his services were no longer needed, 
he bowed, and touched his hat to the culprit, whose cap was 
already over his face, and took leave of him with his habitual 
— " Sir, I wish you a very good morning !" 

A friend of the author's, who had purchased a post-obit^ 
dependent on the life of an elderly female, being asked, some 
years afterwards, whether he had yet come into possession^ 
replied — " Oh no ! — and I have quite given it up ; for the 
old cat has now acquired such a habit of living, that I do 
not suppose she could die if she would." It must be con- 
fessed, that this obstinate habit is the very last that we resign. 

HAPPINESS — a blessing often missed by those who run 
after pleasure, and generally found by those who suffer 
pleasure to run after them. Like a Will-o'-the-wisp, it is 
sometimes farthest off when we imagine we can grasp it, and 
nearest to us when it appears to be at a distance. The most 
effectual way to secure it to ourselves, is to confer it upon 
others. 

None are either so miserable or so happy as they are 
thought, for the mind soon habituates itself to its moral 
atmosphere, whether rough or gentle. If there be no differ- 
ence between possessing a thing, and not wishing for it, 
happiness may be best attained by indifference ; at all 
events there is a greater approximation than is generally 
supposed, between those who have lost, and those who retain 
their happiness ; since the former are always hoping to 
recover, what the latter are always fearing to be deprived of. 

Pyrrhus, denying the reality of any beatitude, maintained 



r 9 o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

that life and death were equal, and when asked why he did 
not seek the grave, since existence was so little attractive, 
replied, " Because both are indifferent to me." 

In the progress of time and general improvement, the 
aggregate of human enjoyment may be incalculably in- 
creased, without diminishing the stock of comparative dis- 
content ; for as we measure our portion in life not by our 
superiority to our predecessors, but by our inferiority to our 
contemporaries, we forget abstract benefits in relative dis- 
advantages. Notwithstanding this drawback, human hap- 
piness must be constantly augmenting. As civilization 
advances, every peasant enjoys luxuries and securities from 
which nobles and monarchs were formerly debarred. That 
there is much less misery and suffering in the world than 
•formerly, is incontestably proved by the remarkable increase 
in the mean duration of life, while the years thus added to 
our span, derive a double value from the almost universal 
diffusion of the means of enjoying them. 

As important disappointments do but rarely occur, and 
yet many men are unhappy during the greater part of their 
lives, it is evident that they must fret their spirit about 
trifles. The great secret of cheerfulness and content is not 
to be annoyed by petty thwartings, and not to aspire to un- 
attainable objects. Children are always^ happy, because 
they are always pursuing trifles of easy acquisition. 

Exaggerating the misery of mankind is a species of impiety, 
because it is an oblique reflection on the benevolence of the 
Deity. If man had been made involuntarily happy, he 
would have been without motives to exertion, and would 
have lost that noblest species of felicity which arises from 
the virtuous and successful development of his faculties. If 
virtue, moreover, always ensured happiness, while vice en- 
tailed inevitable misery, we should lose one of the strongest 
arguments for a future state of retribution. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 191 

HARDSHIPS — pleasures when they are self-imposed, 
intolerable grievances when they are required by our duty. 
What sportsman ever complains of fatigue, what card-player 
of sedentariness, what angler of solitude and dulness, what 
bookworm of confinement, what miser of poverty, what lover 
of slavery ? — Ay, but these annoyances may be endured with 
patience, because they are voluntary. Well, and what pre- 
vents us from performing with an equal good-will the tasks 
enjoined by our station in life, and which all our ill-will can- 
not enable us to avoid? We conquer our fate when we submit 
to it cheerfully. Vain repinings only serve to aggravate it. 

So prone, however, are we to discontent and complaint, 
that even when men bear their real hardships with tolerable 
composure, they are apt to invent imaginary ones, to which 
they cannot submit with any degree of patience. 

HARMONY, Musical — a sensual pleasure, which, in 
well regulated minds, seldom fails to produce moral results. 

Hark ! to the voice of yonder sour 

And gloomy monitor, who cries — 
' * Why do ye waste life's fleeting hour 

In idle songs and melodies ? 
The tongue that sings — the hands that play, 

Shall soon be mute and cold in death, 
And ye who listen to the lay 

As soon shall yield your parting breath." 

But hark ! I hear an angel's voice — 

" Mortals !" exclaims the dulcet chant, 
' ' Sing ! and with instruments rejoice, 

For music is a heavenly grant. 
'Twas meant to charm your cares away, 

The thoughts to raise — the heart to mend, 
And hallow'd thus, its lightest lay» 

Attains a high and moral end." 

He who has a spirit of harmony in his nature will exhibit 



ig2 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

it in every other direction, as well as in that of music. There 
will be a pleasing concord and consentaneousness in all his 
thoughts, words, and actions. As the sound of music 
enables him to walk in a sustained and regular step over 
uneven ground, so will the moral harmony of his nature, 
responding to the unheard music of the spheres, or in other 
words, to the voice of God, speaking by his revelations, 
empower him to pursue the right way with a steady and 
orderly step, amid all the quicksands and inequalities of his 
life's pilgrimage. 

HEAD — a bulbous excrescence, of special use to many as 
a peg for hanging a hat on — as a barber's block for support- 
ing wigs — as a target for shooting at when rendered conspi- 
cuous by a shining helmet — as a snuffbox or a chatterbox — 
as a machine for fitting into a halter or guillotine — as a 
receptacle for freaks, fancies, follies, passions, prejudices, 
predilections — for anything, in short, but brains. 

HEALTH. — See Temperance, Exercise, and Virtue as often 
as you can, and the doctor as seldom as you can. The 
mind's health is the best security for that of the body — Qui 
medicl vivit miserh vivit. 

HEART. — According to a French author, those men pass 
the most comfortably through the world, who have a good 
digestion and a hard heart; the former preserving them 
from all the annoyances o£ rlyspepsia, and the latter from 
those painful feelings to which the compassionate and the 
sympathising are perpetually subject. Such a man, indeed, 
may have fewer pains, but can he enjoy any pleasure, except 
the vulgar ones of sense ? He that possesses a susceptible 
heart, has an inexhaustible mine of sweet emotions. Let 
him cherish its tenderness, and guard, above all things, 



OR. HEADS AND TALES. 193 

against those outpourings of envy or uncharitableness, which 
inevitably harden the heart, as the foam exuded by testaceous 
animals encrusts into shell. 

HEREDITARY DISTINCTIONS— bestowing personal 
rewards and honours without the smallest regard to personal 
qualifications, or even to flagrant afo-qualifications. The 
winner of a title generally deserves it ; he who succeeds to 
it, even though he may deserve nothing but to lose it, is 
allowed to signalize his demerit by retaining all the pride, 
pomp, and circumstance of rank. Frederick of Prussia knew 
better. In the hopeful project of propagating procerity, he 
compelled his grenadiers to marry giantesses, intending to 
recruit his body-guards with their offspring ; but when he 
found that the children fell short of the parents' standard, he 
refused to enrol them, and either placed them in the regi- 
ments of the line, or made them drummers and fifers. If we 
ejected, in like manner, from our House of Lords, the sons 
who fell short of the mental stature by which the winners of 
their title had achieved distinction, there would be a cer- 
tainty of our possessing a more enlightened upper house ; 
but, alas ! there might also be a chance of our having none 
at all ! 

Fame, titles, and wealth, the great incentives to patriotism, 
virtue, and exertion, have a signal moral effect on the whole 
nation when they are bestowed upon those who have merited 
them. Their example, thus rendered conspicuous to all, 
excites in all a noble emulation, the surest source of generous 
and lofty deeds. But when the distinctions thus honourably 
achieved are rendered hereditary, the whole process is 
reversed, and the result is often positively demoralising, both 
upon the inheritor and the spectators. Already possessing 
all the public rewards of merit, and feeling not the smallest 
motive for exertion, the hereditary nobleman naturally sinks 



i 9 4 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

into indolence, even if he do not abandon himself to dissolute 
courses ; while the inferior classes of society, seeing all the 
recompences of excellence heaped upon the slothful and the 
depraved, feel the distinctions of right and wrong confounded 
in their minds, and conclude that vice has as good a chance 
for attaining eminence as virtue. We must recollect, too, that 
the beneficial example of the original achiever of the title, 
supposing it to have been honourably earned, operates but 
for one life, or rather for a portion of it, while this demoralis- 
ing influence can only cease with the extinction of the family. 
Doubtless there are many noblemen, and more probably in 
England than in any other country, who instead of making 
their titles their honour, are an honour to their titles, and 
who have each a much higher merit than that of being " the 
tenth transmitter of a foolish face ; " but though we are glad 
to see such a man in possession of honours, we should 
respect him more, had he earned his distinctions instead of 
inheriting them. 

As to making a man, whether knave, dotard, or idiot, for 
there are no disqualifications, a hereditary legislator, the 
very term involves an absurdity, at which nothing but its 
familiarity prevents our laughing. — What should we say 
to an hereditary poet, or philosopher, or member of the 
House of Commons ? Our history scarcely affords a single 
instance of a name continuing illustrious beyond two 
generations at the most, after which the glory of the an- 
cestor often serves but to signalize the degeneracy of the 
descendant. 

" But," says a grave reader in spectacles, " if men could 
not transmit their titles and honours, they would be much 
less solicitous to earn them, and thus we should lose the 
noblest incentive to noble deeds." My dear Sir, as Dr. 
Johnson once said to Boswell, — clear your mind of cant. 
Many heroes, besides Lord Nelson, having no sons to care 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 195 

about, knew when they were seeking distinctions, that they 
would bequeath them to relatives whom they positively dis- 
liked. If a man be so indifferent to fame and reward, as not 
to exert himself for his own sake, depend upon it he will 
never do it for the sake of his son. Our love of offspring, 
is only self-love at second-hand : and it is never powerful 
enough to supersede the first. That men would be quite 
satisfied with titles and honours for life, is incontestably 
proved by the eagerness with which the proudest of our 
aristocracy struggle for ribands, and orders, and appoint- 
ments about the Court, which are not transmissible to 
descendants. We do not find that the Scotch and Irish 
peers of parliament set the less value on that distinction, 
because it expires with the life of the individual, or the dis- 
solution of parliament. 

In former times, an order of nobility was a barrier against 
the encroachments of the Crown ; in the present, it is more 
frequently an impediment to the progress, improvement, and 
just rights of the commonalty ; coming between the king and 
the people, as has been remarked by Champfort, much in 
the same manner as the hound comes between the hunter 
and the hare. 

When Locke exploded the theory of innate ideas, there 
should have been an end to the system of innate distinctions. 
Many wise, and good, and liberal-minded men are never- 
theless strenuous advocates for the maintenance of an here- 
ditary nobility, asserting it to be consonant to the order 
and intentions of nature. Upon this intricate question, I 
agree with Rumbold, the Roundhead maltster of Charles 
the Second's time, who said that he should firmly believe 
in the divine origin of hereditary distinctions, when he 
saw one class of men born with saddles on their backs, 
and another class with whips and spurs, all ready to ride 
them. 

o 2 



i 5 6 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

HETERODOXY — is another man's doxy : — whereas 
Orthodoxy is a man's own doxy. The definition is an old 
one, but it might be difficult to give a new one which 
should be more accurate. Hales defines heresy and schism 
as religious scarecrows : — they might be efficient ones 
formerly, but now-a-days they will scare few birds except 
gulls and dotterels. 

HINT -a jog of the mental elbow. Lord M., a Scottish 
judge, well known for his penurious habits, being compelled 
to give a dinner to the barristers upon circuit, and having 
neglected to order any claret, with which they had been 
accustomed to be regaled on such occasions, Harry Erskine 
endeavoured by several oblique hints to make him sensible 
of the omission. His lordship, however, who had an acute 
misapprehension where his pocket was in danger, affected to 
receive all these innuendoes in a different sense, and at length, 
seeking to turn the conversation to the war in which we 
were then engaged, abruptly exclaimed, " I wonder what has 
become of the French fleet ? " — " Just at present, my lord," 
replied his waggish persecutor, " I believe it is, like ourselves, 
co7ifined to port / " 

A sportsman, who during the shooting season had gone to 
pass a week with his friend in the country, on the strength of 
a general invitation, soon found, by a gentle hint, that he 
would have done better to wait for a special one. " I saw 
some beautiful scenery," was the visitor's first remark, — " as 
I came to-day by the upper road." " You will see some still 
finer," was the reply, "as you go back to-morrow by the 
Jower one." 

HISTORY — the Newgate calendar of kings and rulers, 
which finds no materials in the happiness or virtue of states, 
and is therefore little better than a record of human crime 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 197 

and misery. It may be doubted whether we should tempt 
children to become misanthropes, by perusing it too early. 
At a more mature age they may beneficially distinguish the 
momentary triumph of crime, from the eternal lot of virtue. 
To form an opinion of human nature from a perusal of 
history, is like judging of a fine city by its sewers and cess- 
pools. 

HOLIDAYS — the Elysium of our boyhood : perhaps the 
only one of our life. Of this truth Anaxagoras seems to 
have been aware. Being asked by the people of Lampsacus, 
before his death, whether he wished any thing to be done in 
commemoration of him, — " Yes," he replied ; " let the boys 
be allowed to play on the anniversary of my death." " Men 
are but children of a larger growth," and, in this working-day 
country, where we have neither half holidays enough, nor 
even enough half-holidays, it might be well if some patriot 
would bequeath to the whole labouring community a legacy 
similar to that of Anaxagoras. 

HOPE — though sometimes little better than the deferring 
of disappointment, is, nevertheless, a compensation for many 
of life's painful realities. Its fruition terminates its enjoy- 
ment ; but why should we complain that expectation renders 
us more happy than possession, since the former is a long- 
enduring pleasure, and the latter only a brief regret ? — A 
presentiment of coming gladness is the summit of terres- 
trial felicity. Hope, however, is a better dependance, 
at the outset, than at the close, of our career. To use the 
language of Lord Bacon, it is a good breakfast, but an idle 
supper. 

All wings — like a cherub, Hope builds upon nothing, 
floats, self-supported, like the clouds, catching every flitting 
ray of the sun, and can raise itself to heaven, even by cling- 



198 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

ing to a film or gossamer. If there be any truth in the poet's 
averment, that 

" Hope springs eternal in the human breast," 
who shall say that man is unhappy ? 

HORSE — an article in the sale of which you may cheat 
your own father without any imputation upon your honesty, 
or your sense of filial duty. Dr. Burnet, having good reason 
for disposing of his nag, got upon its back, and rode it up 
and down, without succeeding, however, in concealing its 
defects. " My good doctor," said the expected purchaser, 
" when you want to take me in, you should mount a pulpit, 
not a horse. 5 ' 

HOUR-GLASS. — Eveiy thing, we are told, has its hour, 
and an hour-glass offers no exception to the rule ; its period 
of utility is but a short one. The sands gradually wear and 
file away the aperture through which they pass, at the same 
time that they themselves are constantly diminishing their 
particles by friction and collision, so that they flow faster 
and faster through the enlarged opening, and the machine, 
turn it which way you will, becomes deranged and useless. 
So it is with the state machine : by struggling against the 
restraints of the monarchical or oligarchical principle, the 
people do but too often enlarge and extend its capacity, 
while they weaken and wear out themselves, until the proper 
and useful balance between the two is entirely destroyed. 
All governments, therefore, however well poised at first, have 
as constant a tendency towards derangement as the hour- 
glass. The balance may be restored in either case, by 
diminishing the power that has been enlarged, and extending 
that which has been lessened in the wear and tear of years — 
this is Reform. Or you may wait till the machine is obliged 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 199 

to be turned topsy-turvy and thrown into total disorder, or 
dashed to pieces — this is Revolution. 

HOUSEKEEPING, Regular.— When Sheridan, by the 
assistance of his friends, was installed in a house in Savile 
Row, he boasted to one of his relations how comfortably and 
regularly he was living, so much so, that everything went on 
like clock-work. — " That I can easily believe," was the reply, 
" it goes on by tick ! tick ! tick ! " 

HUMANITY — is much more shown in our conduct 
towards animals, where we are irresponsible, except to 
heaven, than towards our fellow-creatures, where we are 
restrained by the laws, by public opinion, and by the fear of 
retaliation. The more defenceless and humble the creature, 
the greater is the merit of treating it kindly, since our tender- 
ness must spring from a high principle or a feeling heart. 
Show me the man that is a lover of animals, and I will 
answer for his philanthropy. 

How refined and considerate was the humanity of the 
master butcher, who, in defending his drover for inflicting a 
tremendous blow upon the eye of an ox, exclaimed, " What 
harm could he do by striking the beast over the head, where 
it does not injure the meat ? " 

HUMILITY — the best evidence of real religion, as 
.arrogance, self-conceit, and pretension, are the infallible 
criteria of a Pharisaical devotion. 

As the best laden branches bend 

To Earth with an augmented press, 
So do the fruits of virtue tend 

To bow our hearts in humbleness ; 
While the vain Pharisee, inflate 
With all the puff 'd and windy state, 



2oo THE TIN TRUMPET; 

That owes to emptiness its birth, 
Like a balloon, a void inside, 
Without — all varnish, pomp and pride, 
Only seeks Heaven to be descried, 

Admired and gaz'd at from the earth.— 
What though the sound and sane Divine 

Neglected lives, forgotten dies, 
While sects and devotees combine 

To puff some bigot to the skies ; 
A diamond's still a precious stone 

Although upon a dunghill cast, 
And worthless dust, though upwards blown, 

Retains its vileness to the last. 

That false humility, which only stoops to conquer, and 
prostrates itself that it may rise with the more certainty, 
may be compared to bottled beer, which is laid flat in 
order that it may get up. As the soil which is richest 
in precious ores, generally presents the most barren sur- 
face, so genuine humility, proud of nothing but the con- 
sciousness of virtue, " Disdains to wear the prize she loves 
to win." 

HUNGER — that which gives the poor man his health 
and his appetite, and the want of which often afflicts the 
rich with satiety and disease. 

HUNTINGDON.— The author of " The Bank of Faith," 
however strange and unauthorized may have been his 
doctrine, seems to have entertained most orthodox notions 
as to the proper purposes of a flock, and the great objects of 
the Spiritual Shepherd, if we may judge by the following 
passage. " Who, but a fool, when God has used a shepherd 
to call a flock together, would lead that flock from post to 
pillar on purpose to shear them, and give the wool to men 
whom I know not whence they be? Bless my God! these 



OR, HEADS AND TALE^. aoi 

board-men have taught me better things. I keep my flock 
at home, and shear them for my own profit." 

HYPOCHONDRIA— the imaginary malady with which 
those are taxed who have no real one. 

HYPOCRISY — may assume the mask of vice as well as 
of virtue. Such is the vanity of some men, that they would 
rather be notorious, and even infamous, than unnoticed. 
Lord Byron sometimes pretended to be more profligate than 
he really was, in order, as he affirmed, that he might ingratiate 
himself with the women ! Satirizing the sex is, generally, 
spitting against the wind, which blows back in our own face, 
what we vainly spurt forth against it. It has been said of 
hypocrites, that they go to the Devil's abode by the road of 
Paradise ; but this, at all events, evinces a better taste than 
to journey towards the same destination by the most revolt- 
ing road that can be selected. If it gives us a more favour- 
able opinion of the Devil, to believe that he is not so black 
as he is painted by others, it should deepen our contempt for 
certain pseudo-human devils, when we learn that they are 
not so black as they paint themselves. 

There is much hypocrisy in affecting to give up the 
pleasures of the world, from religious motives, when we only 
withdraw from it because we find a greater gratification in 
the pleasures of retirement. 

" My dear children," said an old rat to his young ones ? 
" the infirmities of age are pressing so heavily upon me, that 
I have determined to dedicate the short remainder of my 
days to mortification and penance, in a narrow and lonely 
hole which I have lately discovered : but let me not interfere 
with your enjoyments ; youth is the season for pleasure ; be 
happy, therefore, and only obey my last injunction — never 
to come near me in my retreat. God bless you all 1" 




202 THE TIN TRUMPE1 ; 

Deeply affected, snivelling audibly, and wiping his paternal 
eyes with his tail, the old rat withdrew, and was seen no 
more for several days, when his youngest daughter, moved 
rather by filial affection, than by that curiosity which has 
been attributed to the sex, stole to his cell of mortification, 
which turned out to be a hole, made by his own teeth, in — 
an enormous Cheshire cheese ! 



DLENESS — hard work for those who are not 
used to it, and dull work for those who are. 
Idleness is a moral leprosy, which soon eats its 
way into the heart and corrodes our happiness, 
while it undermines our health. Nothing is so 
hard to do, as to do nothing. The hypochondriacal 
Countess, who " envies every cinder-wench she sees," is 
much more to be pitied than the toiling drudge, who " sighs 
for luxury and ease." 

Idleness is costly without being a luxury. Montaigne 
always wound up the year's account of his expenses with the 
following entry : " Item — for my abominable habit of idle- 
ness — a thousand livres." 

Idlers may deserve our compassion, but few things are 
more misplaced than the contempt lavished upon them as 
useless members of society ; sometimes such scorn is only 
masked envy ; where it is real, it is wrong. All rich idlers 
may be termed the representatives of former industry and 
talent ; they must either have achieved independence by 
their own exertions or by those of their ancestors, for almost 
all wealth can be traced back to labour, or genius, or merit, 
of some sort. And why do the revilers of the idle, labour 
and toil with such perseverance? — that they may imitate 
those whom they abuse, by acquiring an independence and 
becoming themselves idle. The sight of luxurious ease is the 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 203 

best stimulus to exertion. To suppose that the pleasure of 
overtaking is greater than that of pursuing the game, may be 
a mistake, but it is a beneficial one, and keeps society from 
stagnating. Rich idlers are the advancers of civilization, the 
hest encouragers of industry — the surest patrons of literature 
and the arts. Nor is there any thing invidious in their good 
fortune, for every one may aspire to rival or surpass it, which 
is not the case with hereditary distinctions. 

We toil for leisure only to discover, when we have suc- 
ceeded in our object, that leisure is a great toil. How quickly 
would the working classes be reconciled to what they term 
the curse of compulsory occupation, if they were doomed, 
only for a short time, to the greater curse of compulsory 
idleness ! Quickly would they find, that it is much better to 
wear out than to rust out. 

IDOL — what many worship in their own shape, who 
would be ashamed to do so in any other. 

IMAGINATION, Dreams of— an atonement for the 
miseries of reality. Philosophers in all ages have delighted 
in appealing from this incorrigible world to a creation of 
their own, where all the evils to which mankind are sub- 
jected, should be rectified or mitigated. It was with this 
feeling that Plato, after the death of Socrates, wrote his 
Atlantis. Tacitus, shocked at the profligacy and subjection 
of his countrymen, endeavoured to shame them by holding 
up to their imitation the wisdom, virtue and liberty of the 
German forests. Sir Thomas More transported himself 
from the tyranny of Henry VIII. into Utopia. Har- 
rington established the republican government, for which 
he panted, in his Oceana ; and Montesquieu developed his 
own benevolent views in his fabulous history of the 
Troglodytes. 



204 



THE TIN TRUMPET 



IMPRESSIONS, First — are sometimes involuntarily- 
betrayed. Much of the spectator's mind may be gathered 
by his almost unconscious exclamation when he encounters 
any novel and striking sight, or is thrown into strange and 
unexpected situations, which have as sure an effect as wine, 
in eliciting the truth. Running against a surprise, is like 
running against a post, — it forces the breath out of your 
mouth, before you have time to consider how you shall 
modulate it. Pope, the actor, who was a great epicure, 
ejaculated in a transport, on his first catching the prospect 
from Richmond Hill — " a perfect haunch, by heaven ! " One 
of the French Savans, after risking his life in penetrating 
into the square chamber of the great Egyptian pyramid, had 
no sooner ascertained its dimensions, by holding up his 
torch, than he cried to his companion. — " Quel emplacement 
pour un Billa7'd / " 

IMMORTALITY of modern authors — drawing in im- 
agination upon the future, for that homage which the present 
refuses to pay : — at best a protracted oblivion. A poet, 
however illustrious in his day, is like the statue set up by 
Nebuchadnezzar, the feet of which were of clay. A living 
language is a painting, perpetually changing colour, and then 
perishing ; a dead one is a marble statue — always the same. 
Even this distant reversion of fame is denied to a modern, 
for there is little chance that the English tongue of the 
nineteenth century should live as a dead language after 
it is dead as a living one. Some vainglorious author 
boasted that his poems would be read when those of Pope 
and Dryden were forgotten. " But not till then," added a 
bystander. 

INCONSISTENCY— the only thing in which men are 
consistent. We are certainly compounded of two contrary 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 205 

natures, impelling us, under different circumstances and 
influences to actions apparently irreconcileable. To this 
must it be attributed that the gravest and most saturnine, 
will sometimes indulge in fits of jocularity, a fact which 
T. H. would otherwise explain, but in my opinion with too 
strict a leaning towards anatomy, by referring it to man's 
possessing a funny bone and an os humerus. The stupidest 
person I ever knew, a mere sensualist, a gourmand, and a 
gourmet, composed one of the prettiest little poems I ever 
read. Scaliger said that he would rather have written 
Horace's Ode — " Quern tu, Melpomene? than be made King 
of Arragon ; and for my own part, I would rather have 
indited the following stanzas, than be promoted to the 
Laureatship ! 

That my friend, a dull, plodding fellow, whose great 
business it had hitherto been to eat, drink, and sleep, should 
spread his fancy's wings, and indulge in a poetical flight, is 
perhaps less marvellous, than that the first and only essay of 
his muse, should exhibit a tenderness so touching, combined 
with aspirations so delicate and ethereal. But we must not 
tantalise the reader by withholding from him any longer our 
author's 

LOVE SONG. 
What mistress half so dear as mine, 

Half so well dress'd, so pungent, fragrant, 
Who can such attributes combine, 

To charm the constant, fix the vagrant? 
Who can display such varied arts, 

To suit the taste of saint and sinner, 
Who go so near to touch their hearts, 

As thou, my darling, dainty dinner ? 

Still my breast holds a rival queen, 
A bright-eyed nymph, of sloping shoulders, 

Whose ruddy cheeks and graceful mien, 
Entrance the sense of all beholders. 



so6 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

Oh ! when thy lips to mine are press'd, 

What transports titillate my throttle ! 
My love can find new life and zest, 

In thee, and thee alone, my bottle ! 

INDEPENDENCE, The boast of— is a trait of vulgarity, 
and sometimes of insincerity, since professors are not always 
performers. In reality we are all more independent than is 
generally imagined, for the whole world can neither take from 
us what nature has given, nor give us what nature has denied. 

INDIGESTION— INDUSTRY— two things which were 
never before found united. 

INFALLIBILITY.— To adopt the doctrines of a pretended 
infallible church, in order that you may be free from doubt 
and error, is like putting out your eyes because you cannot 
find your way, or have been misled by a Jack-o'-Lantern. 

INFERIORS — a term which we are ever ready to apply 
to those beneath us in station, without considering whether 
it be applicable in any other sense. Many men may be our 
superiors without being our equals ; and many may be our 
nominal inferiors to whom we are by no means equal. 

Inferiority, in others, whether of rank, fortune or talent,, 
never offends, because it conveys a silent homage to our self- 
love. This is the secret of condescension in the great. 

INNOVATION — the unanswerable objection urged 
against all improvement. We have already quoted the 
dictum of Bacon — that a froward retention of custom is as 
turbulent a thing as an innovation. This was not the 
opinion of Ignatius Loyola, who in order to avoid any in- 
novation in the shape of his boot, after having fractured his 
leg, ordered a considerable part of the bone to be sawed off. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 207 

thus proving himself to be a conservative of the true. dis- 
criminating stamp. To say that all new things are bad, 
is to say that all old things were bad in their com- 
mencement, for the most ancient were once new ; and 
whatever is now most firmly established was once in- 
novation, not even excepting Christianity itself. Even 
Moses sometimes altered his own laws, and others were 
introduced into the religious ordinances of the Jews long 
after his death. " The last chapters of Ezekiel contain a 
representation of a more pure and holy service imparted to 
the prophet in a vision ; and we cannot suppose that they 
would account anything sinful among the improvements of 
divine worship." * The forms of our Christian Church are 
of human institution, and therefore liable to original error, 
while they must necessarily require a new adaptation to the 
changes in the times, unless we follow Loyola's plan, and cut 
the world so as to fit the Church, instead of fitting the 
Church to the world. Who would like to live under our 
political government, such as it was when our " vener- 
able Chureh establishment" was founded? And if the 
former has required a constant series of improvements in 
the course of centuries, are we to believe that experience 
and greater enlightenment can add nothing to the perfect 
excellence of the latter? — "I would only ask," said Lord 
Bacon, two hundred years ago, " why the civil state should 
be purged and restored by good and wholesome laws, made 
every third or fourth year in parliament assembled, devis- 
ing remedies as fast as time breedeth mischief; and con- 
trariwise, the ecclesiastical state should still continue upon 
the dregs of time, and receive no alteration ? " Are no 
additional alterations required since Lord Bacon's time? 
Unquestionably they are, and such have been the sentiments 

* Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, by Michaelis, vol. i. p. 30. 



so8 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

of the most eminent and pious men who have considered 
the subject. Hooker, in his "Ecclesiastical Polity," main- 
tains broadly that — " Neither God being the author of laws, 
nor his committing them to scripture, nor the continuance 
of the end for which they are instituted, is reason sufficient 
to prove they are unchangeable." * Was not the Reforma- 
tion an innovation, and have not the clergy, ever since, been 
virtually though not literally changing our Calvinistical 
articles, by giving them an Armenian interpretation ? How 
well does this illustrate the remark of a church dignitary : 
" Creeds and confessions," says Dr. Paley, "however they 
may express the persuasion or be accommodated to the con- 
troversies or to the fears of the age in which they are com- 
posed, in process of time, and by reason of the changes 
which are wont to take place in the judgment of mankind 
upon religious subjects, they come at length to contradict 
the actual opinions of the church whose doctrines they 
profess to contain." t 

Let us advance from an archdeacon, for authority some- 
times carries more weight than an argument, and hear what 
a Bishop says, " The innovations introduced into our religious 
establishment at the Reformation were great and glorious 
for those times ; but some further innovations are yet 
wanting, (would to God they may be quietly made !) to 
bring it to perfection."! 

Another Bishop confesses that, "it pleased God in his 
unsearchable wisdom to suffer the progress of this great 
work, the Reformation, to be stopped in the midway, and 
the effects of it to be greatly weakened by many unhappy 
divisions among the Reformed." § 

* Third Book, section 10. 

f Moral and Political Philosophy, b. vi. c. 10. 

X Dr. Watson's, Bishop of Llandaff, Misc. Tracts, vol. ii. p. 17. 

6 Dr. Louth's, afterwards Bishop of London, Visitation Sermon, 1758. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 209 

Many other of the brightest ornaments of our Church 
have maintained the necessity of a further reformation. 
Tillotson, Patrick, Tenison, Kidder, Stillingfleet, Burnet, 
all endeavoured to effect it, but in vain. The best friends of 
the Church will be most anxious that the living successors of 
these pious men may inherit their sentiments, and be more 
successful in carrying them into execution ; especially when 
they recollect that the cry of innovation is totally inapplicable. 
That word signifies change by the introduction of novelty, 
whereas the proposed alterations are mostly a return, or an 
approach to the primitive forms and discipline of the 
Christian Church. 

INQUISITIVENESS — an itch for prying into other 
people's affairs, to the neglect of our own ; — an ignorant 
hankering after all such knowledge as is not worth knowing ; 
— a curiosity to learn things that are not at all curious. 
People of this stamp would rather be put to the question, 
than not ask questions ; silence is torture to them. A 
genuine quidnunc prefers false news to none ; he piques 
himself upon having the very first information of things that 
never happened. It is supposed that the Americans have 
attained the greatest art in parrying inquisitiveness, because 
they are more exposed to it ; but a well-known civic wag, at 
a late period of political excitement, maintained a defensive 
colloquy with a rustic inquisitive, which could hardly have 
been excelled by any Transatlantic performer. In travelling 
post, he was obliged to stop at a village to replace a horse's 
shoe, when the Paul Pry of the place bustled up to the carri- 
age window, and, without waiting for the ceremony of intro- 
duction, exclaimed — " Good morning, Sir ! — horse cast a 
shoe, I see — I suppose, Sir, you be going to — " Here he 
paused, expecting the name of the place to be supplied ; but 
the citizen answered — " You are quite right, Sir ; I generally 

v 



2io THE TIN TRUMPET; 

go there at this season." — " Ay — hum — do ye ? — and no doubt 
you be come now from — " — " Right again, Sir ; I live there." 
— " Oh, ay, do ye ? But I see it be a London shay ; pray, 
Sir, is there anything stirring in London ?" — " Yes ; plenty of 
other chaises, and carriages of all sorts." — " Ay, ay, of course ; 
but what do folks say ? " — " Their prayers every Sunday." — 
" That is not what I mean ; I wish to know whether there 
is anything new and fresh ? " — " Yes, bread and herrings." 
— " Anan ! you be a queer chap. Pray, Muster, may I ask 
your name ? " — " Fools and clowns call me ' muster/ but 
I am, in reality, one of the frogs of Aristophanes, and my 
genuine name is Brekekekex Koax. Drive on, postillion." 

INSCRIPTIONS, Monumental.— What a strange people 
are the Americans ! Instead of setting up splendid cenotaphs 
for kings and heroes, the oppressors or the destroyers of their 
species, they erect monuments to the benefactors of mankind, 
containing no other inscription than the name of the de- 
ceased, and the improvement or discovery for which he was 
celebrated. At Charleston, in South Carolina, there is a 
monument, made after the model of that of Scipio at Rome, 
with the following inscription — 

" Eli Whitney, 
The Inventor of the Cotton Gin." 

The superficial reader who may never have heard of this 
useful machine, and who cannot clear his mind from the 
ludicrous or ignoble associations connected with the word, 
will smile, perhaps, as he peruses it; but let us hear the 
opinions of an American judge upon the subject. 

" How few of the inscriptions in Westminster Abbey could 
be compared with that ! Who is there, that, like him, has 
given his country a machine, the product of his own skill, 
which has furnished a large part of its population, from 



OR, HEAD3 AND TALES. sn 

childhood to old age, with a lucrative employment ; by which 
their debts have been paid off; their capitals increased; 
their lands trebled in value. It may be said, indeed, that 
this belongs to the physical and material nature of man, and 
ought not to be compared with what has been done by the 
intellectual benefactors of mankind, — the Miltons, the Shak- 
speares, and the Newtons. But is it quite certain that any 
thing short of the highest intellectual vigour — the brightest 
genius — is sufficient to invent one of these ■ extraordinary 
machines ? Place a common mind before an oration of Cicero 
and a steam engine, and it will despair of rivalling the latter 
as much as the former ; and we can by no means be per- 
suaded that the peculiar aptitude for combining and applying 
the simple powers of mechanics, so as to produce these mar- 
vellous operations, does not imply a vivacity of imagination, 
not inferior to that of the poet and orator. And then, as to 
the effect on society, the machine, it is true, operates, in the 
first instance, on mere physical elements, to produce an accu- 
mulation and distribution of property. But do not all the 
arts of civilization follow in the train ? and has not he who 
has trebled the value of the land, created capital, rescued the 
population from the necessity of drudgery, covered a waste 
with plenty ; has he not done a service to the country of the 
highest moral and intellectual character ? Prosperity is the 
parent of civilization and all its refinements ; and every family 
of prosperous citizens, added to the community j is an addition 
of so many thinking, inventing, moral and immortal natures." 
These are the words of Mr. Justice Johnson, of South 
Carolina, and I will not injure their effect by a single com- 
ment beyond the expression of a hope, that as we have 
begun a similar course in this country, by setting up a statue 
to Watt, the inventor or perfecter of the steam engine, we 
may continue in this career, and only erect public monuments 
to those who have really deserved well of their country. 



212 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

INSTINCT, Animal — the exertion of mental power, 
without the exercise of reason or deliberation : — the im- 
planted principle that determines the will of brutes, and is 
generally limited to the great objects of nature — self-preser- 
vation, the procurement of food, and the continuance of the 
species. An intelligent being, having a motive in view for 
the performance of any particular operation, will set about it 
either similarly to others, or in a different mode, according to 
circumstances, his views and powers of action being almost 
infinitely varied ; but irrational beings never deviate from 
the instincts with which they are born, and which are adapted 
to their particular economy. Hence, animals are stationary, 
while man is progressive. Beavers construct their habita- 
tions, birds their nests, bees their hive, and the spider its 
web, with an admirable ingenuity ; but the most sagacious of 
them cannot apply their skill to purposes beyond the sphere 
of their particular wants, nor do any of them improve, in the 
smallest degree, on their predecessors. Exactly as they 
respectively built at the time of creation, so will they con- 
tinue to build until the end of the world. To illustrate the 
contrary tendency, and the progressiveness of man in his 
habitations, we should compare a Hottentot's kraal with St. 
Peter's, or St. Paul's. 

INSTINCTS, Human — natural prejudices, to reject the 
influence of which, in the education of youth, is, itself, one 
of the most unreasonable of prejudices. " Why should we 
scruple," asks Mrs. Barbauld, " to lead a child to right 
opinions, in the same way by which nature leads him to right 
practices ? He may be left to find out that mustard will 
bite his tongue, but he must be prejudiced against ratsbane." 

INSTITUTIONS— must be fitted to the different ages of 
the world's mind, just as his clothes are altered and adjusted 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 213 

to the different ages of an individual's body. When we have 
outgrown either, they should be cast aside ; unless we wish 
our movements to be cramped, or that which restrains them 
to be violently rent asunder. 

Institutions may be compared to certain fruits : when un- 
ripe, no storm disturbs them; when ripe, a puff will blow 
them down. What have they to expect when they are 
rotten ? The answer will be found in Schedule A of the 
Reform Bill. 

INTOLERANCE — being irreligious for the sake of 
religion, and hating our fellow-creatures, out of a pretended 
love of their Creator. Intolerance has more lives than a cat ; 
you cannot even starve it to death. Deprive its right hand 
of its cunning, by taking away the sword wherewith it smote 
infidels ; its nostrils of the soul-rejoicing odour of a roasting 
heretic; its ears of the delightful groans of imprisoned or 
tormented non-conformists ; its heart of what it best loved, 
in Corporation and Test Acts, and Catholic disabilities, it 
will still pick up its crumbs of comfort, and contrive to sub- 
sist upon the remaining modicum of religious pains and 
penalties, or of legal punishments for the freedom of opinion. 
And while thus employed, the fiend Intolerance boasts of her 
godlike qualities, and especially of her marvellous liberality. 
Supported by jails and judges, she employs the sword of law 
(not justice) to clip the wings of thought, and then com- 
placently exclaims to her mutilated victim — " Behold ! you 
are free as the air — you may fly whithersoever you please : 
who so liberal, so generous, so tolerant, as I ? " 

IVY — a vegetable corruptionist, which, for the purpose of 
its own support, attaches itself, with the greatest tenacity, to 
that which is the most antiquated and untenable, and the 
fullest of holes, flaws, and imperfections. 



2i4 THE TIN TRUMPET; 



EALOUSY — tormenting yourself, for fear you 
should be tormented by another. " Why," asks 
Rochefoucauld, " does not jealousy, which is born 
with love, always die with it?" He would have 
found an answer to this question, had he reflected 
that self-love never dies. Jealousy is the greatest of misfor- 
tunes, and excites the least pity. 

JEWS, The modern — are proofs, we are told, of the truth 
of Christianity. Are they not, at the same time, proofs of 
the want of Christianity in those who profess, without feel- 
ing, its charitable doctrine ? As the Scriptures, when they 
enjoin love of our neighbour, carefully warn us to put the 
most enlarged construction upon the word, it is difficult to 
reconcile the virulent denunciations, and the incentives to 
scorn and hatred of the Jews, which so many of the clergy 
infuse into their sermons, either with Christianity, good taste, 
or right feeling. Our Saviour was a Jew; the greater portion 
of the Bible is Jewish ; the ten commandments, which con- 
stitute the basis of our morality, are Jewish. Why, then, 
should we dislike our fellow-subjects, and spiritual half- 
brethren, because they happen to be Jews, more even than 
we hate Turks and Pagans, who are utter aliens and 
infidels? 

All persecution is demoralizing, and the Jews have been 
long exposed to its worst species, — that of public prejudice, 
aggravated by civil and other disabilities. Abolish all reli- 
gious pains, penalties, and distinctions, and this oppressed 
race will quickly become elevated in the moral, as well as in 
the political scale. 

What a picturesqueness do these descendants of Abraham 
impart to the otherwise monotonous surface of society ! Far 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 215 

and wide do we travel, to behold the inanimate mouldering 
remains of Greece and Rome; while in the Israelites, our 
neighbours and fellow-townsmen, we may contemplate the 
living ruins of a nation still more ancient and illustrious. 
Who can survey their adust complexions, oriental physiogno- 
mies, and dark-flowing beards, converting them into unfaded 
portraits of the old Scripture characters, without being 
carried back, in imagination, to the crowded streets of 
Solyma, and the glories of King David? 

There are moral points of view, also, in which they cannot 
be contemplated without exciting respect and admiration in 
every candid mind. For eighteen hundred years, under per- 
secutions more relentless and unremitting than the world 
ever witnessed, have they clung to their ancient faith with an 
indomitable and unparalleled heroism. Martyrdom is com- 
paratively nothing; — death, the affair of a moment, is easily 
confronted; — but the life -long death of continual oppression, 
scorn, and hatred, all which might be avoided by the utter- 
ance of a single word, none but a high-principled soul can 
endure. Their inflexible tenacity, in this respect, presents a 
grand, I had almost said a sublime spectacle. " But they 
are so sordid," objects blind Prejudice. You have made 
them so, may be replied, by leaving no other career open to 
them but that of money getting. Besides, they are not 
sordid, where any principle or duty prompts them to be 
otherwise. While' we ourselves are forming societies to 
compel a due observance of the Sabbath, on the part of 
Christian tradesmen, the Jews, a whole people of traders and 
dealers, already debarred from the seventh day of the week, 
spontaneously deprive themselves of another, from a sense of 
religious duty. The poorest, the most starving of their tribe, 
shuts up his miserable shop on the Saturday, and willingly 
sacrifices a sixth part of his income upon the altar of his 
religion. Are such men to be taunted by the sanctified 



216 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

dealers and traders, who cannot refrain from transacting 
business, even on an annual Fast-day? 

By the necessity under which they labour, of submitting 
to test oaths and declarations, opposed to their conscience, 
the Jews are excluded from the common privileges of citizen- 
ship, from the learned professions, and other channels of 
honourable distinction ; all in manifest contravention of that 
principle of our reformed constitution, which declares, that 
religious difference shall not form any ground of civil dis- 
ability. And yet we are not persecutors ! What odious 
cant ! 

JOKES — the cayenne of conversation, and the salt of life. 
" A joke's prosperity," says Shakspeare, " lies in the ear of 
the hearer;" and indeed it is sometimes exceedingly difficult 
to pronounce whether it be a good one or a bad one, risibly 
speaking, for a bon mot may be too witty to be pleasant, or 
at least to elicit laughter; while a poor pleasantry, by the 
help of some ludicrous turn, or expression, or association of 
ideas, may provoke cachinnation, a gorge deploy ee. Nay, 
there are cases, in which a joke becomes positively good from 
its being so intolerably bad, and is applauded, in the inverse 
ratio of its merit, as the greatest honours are sometimes 
showered upon men who have the least honour. The admi- 
ration excited by the highest order of wit is generally serious, 
because it sets us thinking. It was said of a crafty Israelite, 
who deserted the Hebrew faith, without embracing that of 
the Christians, and yet endeavoured to make both parties 
subservient to his selfish views, that he resembled the blank 
leaf between the Old and New Testament, belonging to 
neither, and making a cover of both. No one would laugh 
at this; it is exactly that description of wit which has been 
defined " an unexpected association of apparently dissimilar 
M?as, exciting pleasure and surprise." Lord Byron was 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 217 

once asked by a friend, in the green room of Drury Lane 
Theatre, whether he did not think Miss Kelly's acting in the 
"Maid and the Magpie" exceedingly natural? — "I really 
cannot say," replied his lordship ; " I was never innocent of 
stealing a silver spoon." This is drollery rather than wit, 
and excites our laughter, without claiming any portion of our 
admiration. 

One of our poets, a remarkably cadaverous-looking man, 
recited a poem, descriptive of a country walk, in which the 
following couplet occurred : — 

" The redbreast, with his furtive glance, 
Comes and looks at me askance ;" — 

upon which a wag exclaimed — " Gad ! if it had been a 
carrion-crow, he would have stared you full in the face f 
a remark so humorous and unexpected, that it was received 
with an unanimous shout of laughter. Here the absurdity 
of the idea, if it did not amount to wit, was something 
better, or, at all events, more stimulative of the risible 
faculties. 

JUDGMENT — a faculty of which very few people have 
enough to discover that they want more. In forming a 
judgment of each other, the sexes usually proceed upon the 
falsest and most deceitful grounds. If a woman be struck 
by a man's exterior, she invariably thinks well of his morals 
and his talents : gain her love, and you secure her esteem ; 
she judges of everything by the impression made upon 
herself, and in the credulity that prompts her to believe 
what she wishes, is easily led away by her confiding and 
affectionate nature. Men, sexually speaking, are still more 
blind and rash in their judgment, or, rather, in their total 
want of it. If they are smitten by a pretty face, they inquire 
no further, and ask but one question — Will you have me ? 



si8 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

They marry the face, of which the beauty is to last, perhaps, 
for one year only, — at most for ten, — and they know little or 
nothing of the mind with which they are to be associated 
until death. In balancing the respective motives of the 
sexes, the advantage is, as usual, all on the side of the 
females. Both are precipitate, and both wrong ; but women 
are misled by their trust and their affections, while men 
fall into the same error from the influence of their passions 
and their senses. If any of my male readers doubt this 
judgment, let them doubt their own. 



ING — according to the doctrine of despots and 
their worshippers, the hereditary proprietor of 
a nation ; — according to reason, its account- 
able first magistrate. Monarchs are the spoilt 
children of fortune ; and, like the juvenile 
members of the class, are often wayward, peevish, and ill 
at ease. We talk of being " as happy as a king ;" but which 
of us is not happier, — at least, in love and friendship, the 
great sweeteners of life ? There is no courtship in Courts. 
A king goes a wooing in the person of his privy councillors ; 
marries one whom he never saw, in order to please the 
nation, of which he is the ruler, only to be its slave ; and is 
generally cut off from those domestic enjoyments that con- 
stitute the highest charm of existence. Friendship cannot 
offer him a substitute, for equality is its basis ; and he who 
wears a crown is at once prevented by station, and pro- 
hibited by etiquette, from indulging in any communion 
of hearts. Truly he ought to be exempted from all other 
taxes, since he pays quite enough for his painful pre- 
eminence. 

A wise man, however well "qualified to shine in Courts, 
will seldom desire to share their dangerous splendour. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 219 

Diogenes, while he was washing cabbages, seeing Aristippus 
approach, cried out to him — " If you knew how to live upon 
cabbages, you would not be paying court to a tyrant." — " If 
you knew how to live with kings," replied Aristippus, " you 
would not be washing cabbages." 

" Of all kinds of men," says a French writer, " God is 
least beholden to kings ; for he does the most for them, 
and they the least for him." And yet the patriot king y 
who confers happiness upon a whole nation, must render 
a more acceptable service to the Deity than any other 
mortal can proffer. 

KISSES — admit of a greater variety of character than 
perhaps even my female readers are aware, or than Joannes 
Secundus has recorded. Eight basial diversities are men- 



tioned in Scripture ; viz 

Salutation . 
Valediction . 
Reconciliation 
Subjection . 
Approbation 
Adoration . 
Treachery . 
Affection . . 



-The kiss of 

. Sam. xx. 41. 1 Thess. v. 26. 

. Ruth ii. 9. 

. 2 Sam. xiv. 33. 

. Psalms ii. 12. 

. Proverbs ii. 4. 

. 1 Kings xix. 18. 

. Matt. xxvi. 49. 

. Gen. xlv. 15. 



But the most honourable kiss, both to the giver and receiver, 
was that which Queen Margaret of France, in the presence 
of the whole Court, impressed upon the lips of the ugliest 
man in the kingdom, Alain Chartier, whom she one day 
found asleep, exclaiming to her astonished attendants — " I 
do not kiss the man, but the mouth that has uttered so 
many charming things." Ah ! it was worth while to be a 
poet in those days. 



22o . THE TIN TRUMPET; 

KITCHEN — the burial-place of the epicure's health and 
fortune. — "What a small kitchen !" exclaimed Queen Eliza- 
beth, after going over a handsome mansion. — " It is by 
having so small a kitchen, that I am enabled to keep so 
large a house," replied its owner. 

KNOWLEDGE — a molehill removed from the moun- 
tain of our ignorance. Where shall we discover a finer 
illustration of disinterestedness than the outcry raised 

against the taxes on knowledge by Alderman , who can 

never be affected by the impost. To call the newspaper 
stamp, however, a tax upon knowledge, is to term the duty 
upon gin a tax upon provisions. Away with the former, 
nevertheless, in order that men of respectability and talent 
may enter into the arena, and compete with the authors 
of the illegal penny and twopenny publications. If danger 
be apprehended from the darkness or perversion of the 
popular mind, what security so effectual as that of en- 
lightening and guiding it? How preposterous to clamour 
against the poison, and interdict the antidote ! If the 
people will endanger their own constitution, and that of 
the country, by plucking sour apples from the forbidden 
tree of knowledge, the only way to cure them of their 
propensity, is to allow them free access to a sweeter and 
better fruit. 

" What will be the best method of saving this small 
beer from depredation ? " said a lady to her butler. — 
" By placing a cask of strong beer at the side of it," was 
the reply. 

A knowledge of useful things, of which others are igno- 
rant, is never considered an excuse for an ignorance of 
trifles that are generally known. 

After a scholar has attained a certain age, no knowledge 
that you can let in upon his mind will do him any harm. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 221 

Cattle may be admitted into an orchard, to graze it after the 
trees are grown up, but not when they are young. 

Partial instruction may be a partial evil, but universality 
of knowledge, however high the standard, will never take 
the poor out of their sphere. Elevating the lower, without 
depressing the upper classes, it will be an unmixed good to 
both. But if knowledge be power, will not its universality 
give a dangerous ascendancy to the multitude? No — for 
the few will be still wiser than the many. The most igno- 
rant will then run the greatest risk. In a general illlumina- 
tion, it is only the unlighted windows that are pelted and 
broken by the mob. 

KNOWLEDGE of the world — the fancied wisdom of 
those whose reflections are created by a mirror. There is 
a class of persons who think they evince prodigious pene- 
tration into the human heart, when they ascribe every action 
to the worst possible motives, taking it for granted that all 
men are sordid, profligate, or designing, all women dissi- 
pated, thoughtless, and inconstant. This misanthropical 
ignorance they presume to term knowledge of the world. 
So it may be, but it is of that world only which is comprised 
in their own persons. 



AMPS. — When these were brought in at night, 
the ancient Greeks used to salute them with the 
words, Xatpe, <pi\ov <pws — Salve arnica lux! — 
The human owls of modern times, when the 
intellectual light is spreading around them, 
are so far from hailing it with a blessing, that they retire 
to their cells and lurking places, and hoot at it as a 
pestilent innovation. While stabbing at the liberties and 




222 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

happiness of mankind, they would rather cry out, with 
Macbeth,— 

" Come, thick night, 
And pall thee in the dun nest smoke of hell, 
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, 
To cry hold ! hold ! " 

LANDSCAPE GARDENING— artificial nature: the 
finest of the fine arts. He who lays out grounds and 
gardens, calling new beauties into existence, not only for 
his own gratification, but for that of his contemporaries and 
successors, is exercising a benevolent power which makes 
him a species of creator. Like all the pure and simple plea- 
sures, this is an enjoyment which rewards itself, and retains 
its attraction under all circumstances, and at every period of 
life. The word Paradise is synonymous with garden, and 
the Elysium of the ancients consisted of sylvan fields. 
Happy the man who can secure a living apotheosis, amid the 
beatitudes of a terrestrial garden ! 

LANGUAGES — in several instances have derived their 
names from a single word. Sismondi, writing on the lite- 
rature of the Trouveres, says, " The Provencal was called 
the Langued'Oc, and the Wallon the Langue d'Oz'l, or d'Oui, 
from the affirmative word of each language, as the Italian 
was then called the Langue de Si, and the German the 
Langue de YaP Not only to a whole language, but to a 
whole life may the word yes give its colour and character, as 
many an unhappy wife has found to her cost. 

Language, which is the uniting bond and the very medium 
of communion between men, is at the same time, by the great 
variety of tongues, the means of severing and estranging 
nations more than anything else. In this respect it may be 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 223 

compared to the Ourang-outang, which, according to the 
travelling showman, " forms the connecting link which sepa- 
rates mankind from the human race." 

LAUGH, A horse — the sorry hack upon which buffoons 
and jesters are fain to ride home, when they want to make a 
retreat, and are at a loss for any other conveyance. Such 
Merry Andrews save their credit as the Romans did their 
Capitol, by the cackling of geese. To succeed in this object 
all expedients are considered fair ; to win the laugh, is to 
win the battle ; if you cannot, therefore, check-mate your 
adversary by reasoning, dumb-found him by your superior 
learning, or surpass him in the brilliancy of your wit, knock 
him down by a poor pun, the worse the better ; set the 
example of a hearty laugh, for this is catching, though wit is 
not, and make your escape while the company are exercising 
their risible muscles ; they will generally be with you, for 
they like to see a conqueror capsized. The late Jack Taylor, 
of pleasant memory, who was no mean proficient in thus 
turning the tables upon his opponent, when he found himself 
losing, has recorded one of his exploits. He was rapidly 
losing ground in a literary discussion, when the opposite 
party exclaimed, " My good friend, you are not such a rare 
scholar as you imagine ; you are an every-day man." "Well, 
and you are a weak one," replied Taylor, who instantly 
jumped upon the back of a horse laugh, and rode victoriously 
over his prostrate conqueror. 

LAUGHTER — a faculty bestowed exclusively upon man, 
and one which there is, therefore, a sort of impiety in not 
exercising as frequently as we can. We may say with Titus, 
that we have lost a day if it have passed without laughing. 
The pilgrims at Mecca consider it so essential a part of their 
devotion, that they call upon their prophet to preserve them 



224 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

from sad faces. " Ah ! M cried Rabelais, with an honest 
pride, as his friends were weeping around his death-bed, " if 
I were to die ten times over, I should never make you cry- 
half so much as I have made you laugh." " Risn inepto res 
ineptiornulla est" says an anti-risible reader; but if laughter 
be genuine, and consequently a means of innocent enjoyment, 
can it be inept ? * 

LAW, English — see Hocus Pocus, and Chicanery. The 
following character, or rather sentence of condemnation, was 
pronounced upon it, by one well acquainted with his subject 
— the lecturer over the remains of the late Jeremy Bentham. 
In answer to the question, what is this boasted English law, 
which, as we have been told for ages, renders us the envy 
and admiration of surrounding nations, he replies, " The 
substantive part of it, whether as written in books or ex- 
pounded by judges, a chaos, fathomless and boundless ; the 
huge and monstrous mass being made up of fiction, tauto- 
logy, technicality, circuity, irregularity, and inconsistency ; 
the admiiiistrative part of it, a system of exquisitely con- 
trived chicanery ; a system made up of abuses ; a system 
which constantly places the interest of the judicial minister 
in opposition to his duty ; so places his interest in opposi- 
tion to his duty, that in the very proportion in which it serves 
his ends, it defeats the ends of justice ; a system of self- 
authorised and unpunishable depredation ; a system which 
encourages mendacity, both by reward and punishment ; a 
system which puts fresh arms into the hands of the injurer, 
to annoy and distress the injured ; in a word, a system which 
maximises delay, sale, and denial of justice." And yet, what 
an outcry was raised by the disinterested reverers of our 
time-hallowed institutions, when Lord Brougham attempted 
to sweep some of the filth from the mere margin of this sink 
of iniquity. His reforms were too rough, forsooth. They 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 225 

would have him cleanse the Augean stable with a white 
cambric handkerchief. 

Most lawsuits are a juggle, whose sole object seems to be 
the plunder of both plaintiff and defendant by the prolonga- 
tion of their quarrel. " Strange," says Old Fuller in his 
"Worthies," "that reason continuing always the same, law, 
grounded thereon, should be capable of so great alteration." 
It is not grounded upon reason, but upon the artifices of 
pettifoggers, and therefore its perversions and metamor- 
phoses are infinite. In Republicd corrufitissima, plurimtz 
leges. When Justinian compiled his Institutes, the writings 
on the civil law alone amounted to many camel loads. Ours 
may be reckoned by ship loads, and the money annually ex- 
pended upon law and lawyers (not upon justice), may be 
counted by millions. Such is the magnitude and vitality of 
this hundred headed Hydra, that we may well doubt the 
power of Lord Brougham to crush it, even though he dip his 
arrows in the monster's gall. Hercules as he is, he will find 
it difficult to outlaw the lawyers. 

LAWYERS — generally know too much of law to have a 
very clear perception of justice, just as divines are often too 
deeply read in theology, to appreciate the full grandeur and 
the proper tendencies of religion. Losing the abstract in the 
concrete, the comprehensive in the technical, the principal 
in its accessories, both are in the predicament of the rustic, 
who could not see London for the houses. 

It has been invidiously said, that lawyers pass their time 
in taking advantage of their contemporaries ; but if we may 
credit the authority of Foote, they sometimes outwit the 
undertaker even after their death. That facetious person 
being once summoned into the country, by the relatives of a 
respectable practitioner, to whom he had been appointed 
executor, was asked what directions should be given respect- 

Q 



226 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

ing the funeral ? " What may be your practice in the 
country," said the wag, " I do not exactly know ; but in 
London, when a lawyer dies, his body is disposed of in a 
very cheap and simple manner. We lock it up in a room 
over night, and by the next morning it has always totally- 
disappeared. Whither it has been conveyed we cannot tell 
to a certainty ; but there is invariably such a strong smell of 
brimstone in the chamber, that we can form a shrewd guess 
at the character of the conveyancer." 

LEARNING — very often a knowledge of words, and an 
ignorance of things ; a common act of memory, which may 
be exercised without common sense. A mere scholar is 
generally known by his unacquaintance with everything but 
languages, which have so filled his head, that they have left 
room for nothing else. He mistakes the steps for the temple 
of Minerva; the shrine for the goddess herself; and is as 
proud of his mind's empty purse, as if there were money in 
it ! Pedantry's jargon will no more improve our under- 
standings, than the importunate clink of a smoke-jack will 
fill our bellies. The elaborate triflings of scholiasts and 
commentators, the jingling sophistries of logic, and what has 
been technically termed the learning of the schools, all of 
which were so many antidotes to sound sense and reflection, 
may well be thrown overboard, when many a member of our 
Mechanics' Institutes, possesses useful knowledge that might 
puzzle a whole convent of college monks. 

Of all learning the most difficult department is to un- 
learn. Drawing a mistake or prejudice out of the head, is as 
painful as drawing a tooth, and the patient never thanks the 
operator for the " demptzts per vim mentis gratissimns error" 
No man likes to admit that his favourite opinion (perhaps 
the only child of his mind, and cherished accordingly) is an 
illegitimate one. Sluggish intellects arc ever the most obsti- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 227 

nate, for that which it has cost us much to acquire, it costs 
us much to give up ; and the older we get, the more tena- 
ciously we cling to our errors, as those weeds are most diffi- 
cult to eradicate that have had the longest time to root 
themselves. Harvey could find no physician, turned of 
forty, who would admit the circulation of the blood. Num- 
bers of these quadragenarian owls are now to be found in 
every profession, while we have Jesuits enough of all ages, 
who sigh for the suppressed Inquisition, whenever a political 
or religious Galileo promulgates any truth that threatens to 
interfere with established falsehoods. These buzzards have 
yet to acquire the most useful of all learning — that of un- 
learning. 

LIARS — verbal forgers, stiflers of truth, and murderers 
of fact. They will sometimes attempt to conceal their 
failing by affecting a scrupulous adherence to veracity. B — , 
who rarely shamed the Devil, once said of his friend, "Jack 
is a good fellow, but, it must be confessed, he has his failings. 
I am sorry to say so, but I will not tell a lie for any man. 
Amicus Jack — sed magis a?nica Veritas, — I love my friend, 
but I love truth still more." — " My dear B — /' said a by- 
stander, laying his hand upon his shoulder — " I never ex- 
pected that you would have preferred a perfect stranger to 
an old acquaintance." 

The ci-devant civic dandy, who, from his rising in the east 
and setting in the west, or, perhaps, from his want of per- 
sonal beauty, quasi lucus a non hccendo, had acquired the 
nickname of Apollo, once received a visit from a peer, whose 
propensity to fibbing is well known. — " I find," said his lord- 
ship, who is apt to mistake impertinence for jocularity, 
" that you are going to the fancy-ball to-night, and I pre- 
sume you will appear in the character of Apollo." — " I had 

some such idea," replied , " and I am glad your lord- 

Q 2 



228 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

ship has called, because you can. now accompany me as my 
lyre:' 

LIBELj Law of— a libel upon the law. Even under the 
tyranny of some of the Roman emperors, there seems to 
have been a greater latitude of speech and writing than is 
permitted by the laws of modern England. Adverting to the 
reigns of Trajan and Aurelius, Tacitus says — " Rara te?n- 
ftorum felicitate, 7ibi senlire , qup velis, et qua sentias dicere 
licet" — " By the rare happiness of those days you might 
think what you wished, and speak as, you thought." 

LIBELLERS— literary bravos, supported by illiterate 
cowards. If the receiver of stolen goods be worse than 
the thief, so must the purchaser of libels be more culpable 
than their author. As the peruser of a slanderous journal 
would write what he reads, had he the talent, so the actual 
maligner would become a malefactor, had he the opportunity 
and the courage. — " Maledicus a. malefico, nisi occasione, non 
dijfert" says Quinctilian. — "He who stabs you in the dark, 
with a pen, would do the same with a pen-knife, were he 
equally safe from detection and the law." 

A libeller's mouth has been compared to that of a volcano 
— the lighter portions of what it vomits forth are dissipated 
by the winds; the heavier ones fall back into the throat 
whence they were disgorged. The aspersions of libellers 
may, perhaps, be better compared to fullers' earth, which, 
though it may seem to dirt you at first, only leaves you more 
pure and spotless, when it is rubbed off. 

LIBRARY — a precious catacomb, wherein are embalmed 
and preserved imperishably, the great minds of the dead who 
will never die. 

"In the library of the world," says .Champfort, "men 



• OR, HEADS AND TALES. 229 

have hitherto been ranged according" to the form, the size, 
and the binding. The time is coming when they will take 
rank and order according to their contents and intrinsic 
merits." 

LIFE— a momentary convulsion between two tranquil 
eternities; — an avenue to death, as death is the gate that 
opens to a new and more enduring life. Our tables and 
bills of mortality, within the last hundred years, show a 
remarkable and unprecedented increase in the average 
duration of human life ; while our capacities for taking 
advantage of this prolonged term have, at least, been doubled 
within the term mentioned. The existence of a rational and 
improvable creature, is not to be measured by years and 
months, but by ideas and sensations — by what we can see, 
enjoy, learn, and accomplish during our pilgrimage upon 
earth, in which point of view every educated individual is 
as a Methuselah when compared to his remote ancestors. 
Look how we have conquered space and time, and all the 
elements that surround us, making an impalpable vapour, 
in England alone, perform the work of many millions of men, 
and thus leading us to the cheering hope that iron and steam 
may eventually supersede, to a considerable degree, the 
employment of human and animal bones and muscles, so 
that the meanest artizan may have leisure for recreation and 
the culture of his mind. Consider how the pangs of separa- 
tion are diminished and the affections solaced, by those 
facilities of rapid travelling which may be said to have 
almost brought the uttermost ends of the earth together, 
and to have made each nation participate in the advantages 
of all. Easy is it now for any man or woman to be a literal 
cosmopolitan. A week takes us to St. Petersburg — four 
weeks to Grand Cairo — a few months to the East Indies, or 
to any part of the world. 



2 3 o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

It is the activity of the mind, not the functional vitality of 
the body, that constitutes life. By the enlargement of our 
ideas, and the general diffusion of knowledge, consequent 
upon our increased powers of locomotion and comparison, 
we may condense a whole existence into a narrow compass 
of time, and enjoy a dozen such lives as were passed by the 
most enlightened of our ancestors. And yet, doubly precious 
as this state of being has become, how many are compelled 
to throw away life for a livelihood, et propter vitam vivendi 
-perdere causas. Nevertheless, their mere vitality, even in 
spite of their discontents, is an inexhaustible source of gra- 
tification, and might be rendered much more so, would they 
but contemplate it in the proper light. " Enjoy thy existence," 
says Jean Paul Richter, " more than thy manner of exist- 
ence, and let the dearest object of thy consciousness be the 
consciousness of life." 

Though nothing is so closely allied as life to death, no two 
things are so utterly different from each other. 

The ancient Egyptians considered every part of the 
universe to be endowed with an inherent life, energy and 
intelligence; worshipping the active phenomena of nature, 
without discriminating cause from effect. They believed the 
elements themselves to be animated ; and why should they 
not be ? — All of them have motion and a voice — the great 
constituents of vitality : and, if not themselves alive, they are 
all instinct with life. _ 

Life has been compared to tragedy, comedy, and farce. 
It was reserved for Talleyrand to consider it as a one-act 
piece. " I know not why the world calls me a wicked man," 
said Rulhiere, " for I never, in the whole course of my life, 
committed more than one act of wickedness." — " But when 
will this act be at an end?" asked Talleyrand. 

LIGHT, The new. — It was said of Burns, that the light 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. . 231 

which led him astray, was light from heaven ; a false and 
unguarded assertion, for no light from heaven can ever lead 
man astray. The spiritual new light is a Jack-o'-lantern, 
which sometimes lures its followers into quagmires and pit- 
falls ; or it may be the glitter of gold, and the dazzling lustre 
of worldly greatness, by which they are lighted to dignities 
and high places. Of this latter we will cite an instance from 
the Life of Andrew Melville, by Dr. M'Crie:— " When 
Cowper was made Bishop of Galloway, an old woman, who 
had been one of his parishioners, and a favourite, could not 
be persuaded that her minister had deserted the Presby- 
terian cause. Resolved to satisfy herself, she paid him a 
visit at the Canongate, where he had his residence, as Dean 
of the Chapel Royal. The retinue of servants, through which 
she had to pass, staggered the good woman's confidence, 
and being ushered into a room, where the bishop sat, she 
exclaimed — i Oh, Sir ! what's this ? — and ye ha' really left 
the guid cause, and turned prelate ! ' — ' Janet ! ' said the 
bishop, ' I have got a new light on this subject.' — ' So I 
see/ replied Janet ; ' for when ye was at Perth, ye had but 
ae candle, and now ye ha' got twa before ye. — That's your 
new light.' " 

LIGHT — like the circulating blood, which returns to the 
heart, is supposed to return to the sun, after having performed 
the functions for which it was emitted from that body. Even 
so will the soul, our intellectual light, return to its divine 
source, when released from the body, to whose earthly pur- 
poses it has ministered. 

LITERATI — may be divided into two classes : those who 
live to study, and those who study to live ; the former, 
tending to elevate literature, and the latter, to degrade it. 
The first generally survive their own death ; the last often 



232 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

die and are forgotten in their lifetime, for that which is 
written for the day must expire with it. 

LOVER— see Lunatic. A man, who, in his anxiety to 
obtain possession of another, has lost possession of himself. 
Lovers are seldom tired of one another's society, because 
they are always speaking of themselves. Let us not, how- 
ever, disparage this fond infatuation, for all its tendencies 
are elevating. He who has passed through life without ever 
being in love, has had no spring-time — no summer in his 
existence ; his heart is as a flowering plant which hath never 
blown — never developed itself — never put forth its beauty 
and its perfume — never given nor received pleasure. 

The love of our youth, like Kennel coal, is so inflammable, 
that it may be kindled by almost any match; but if its 
transient blaze do not pass away in smoke, its flame, too 
bright and ardent to last long, soon exhausts and consumes 
itself. The love of our maturer age is like coke, which, when 
once ignited, burns with a steady and enduring heat, emitting 
neither smoke nor flame. 

No wonder that we hear so much of the sorrows of love, 
for there is a pleasure even in dwelling upon its pains. — 
Revelling in tears, its fire, like that of naphtha, likes to 
swim upon water. 

Lovers must not trust too implicitly to their visual organs. 
A tender swain once reproached his inamorata with suffering 
a rival to kiss her hand, a fact which she indignantly denied. 
— " But I saw it? — " Nay, then," cried the offended fair, " I 
am now convinced you do not love me, since you believe your 
eyes in preference to my word." 

LUCK, Good and bad — is but a synonyme, in the great 
majority of instances, for good and bad judgment. The 
prudent, the considerate, and the circumspect, seldom com- 



OR, HEADS AND TAL.ES. 233 

plain of their ill luck; but I should shrewdly suspect the 
discretion of the grumbler who protested that fortune always 
made clubs or spades trumps, when he had not a single 
black card in his hand ; and that even when he fell back- 
wards he was sure to break his nose. 

LUXURY — the conqueror of conquerors — the consump- 
tion of states — the dry-rot of the constitution — the avenger 
of the defeated and the oppressed. Poverty, conquest, wealth, 
luxury, decay ; such is the Round-Robin history of the 
world — 

' ' Sasvior armis 
Luxuria incubuit, victumque ulciscitur orbem. " 

Mandeville's position, that private vices are public benefits, 
and that individual luxury, even when pushed to a faulty 
excess, is a public advantage, cannot be maintained ; for 
nothing that is injurious to one, can be good for many. 



AGNAN1MITY— is as often littleness as 
greatness of mind. There is a cheap species, 
which prompts us to feel complacently towards 
our enemy when he has enabled us to make a 
happy repartee. 
We forgive him all his previous attempts to lower us, 
because he has unintentionally furnished us with a momen- 
tary triumph ; so completely does our love of self predomi- 
nate, even over our dislike of others. The more cruelly we 
have mauled our poor vanquished opponent, the more ten- 
derly do we regard him; and if we have well nigh blown 
him to atoms, we feel as if we could never again injure a hair 
of his head. As there is no magnanimity so cheap, there is 
none so gratifying as this, for we like to purchase our virtues 




234 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

on good terms. One of Sheridan's creditors, after having 
long and vainly dunned him, at length suggested, that if he 
could not discharge the principal of the debt, he might, at 
least, pay the interest. "No," said the wag ; "it is not my 
interest to pay the principal, nor my principle to pay the 
interest." Though he had previously hated the man for his 
vulgar importunity, it is recorded that he took him into favour 
from that moment, and actually defrayed the amount of his 
bill, a rare instance of preference, considering that he seldom 
discharged any debt till he paid that of nature. 

Pleasant enough was the magnanimity of the person who, 
being reproached with not having revenged himself of a 
caning he had received, exclaimed, " Sir, I never meddle with 
what passes behind my back ! " 

MAN — an image of the Deity, which occasionally acts as 
if it were anxious to fill up a niche in the temple of the Devil. 
The only creature which, knowing its mortality and immor- 
tality, lives as if it were never to die, and too often dies as if 
it were never to live : — the sole being gifted with reason, the 
only one that acts irrationally : — the nothing of yesterday — 
the dust of to-morrow. Man is a fleeting paradox, which the 
fulness of time alone can explain ; a living enigma, of which 
the solution will be found in death. 

MARRIAGE — a state of which it is unnecessary to 
describe the great happiness, for two reasons ; — first, because 
it would be superfluous to those who are in the enjoyment of 
its blessings : and secondly, because it would be impossible 
to those who are not. 

Habituated as we are to the association of doves with loves, 
it seems startling to learn, on the authority of Pliny, that the 
Romans considered the hawk a bird of particularly good 
omen in marriage, because it never eats the hearts of other 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 235 

birds j thus intimating that no differences, or quarrels, in the 
marriage state, ought ever to reach the heart. 

The difficulty of effecting marriages, in these times of 
expensive establishments, is one of the great evils of our 
social system, and the principal source of corrupt manners. 
Malthus's prudential restraint is actively operative among the 
middling, and utterly neglected by the lower classes ; hence 
the predominance of celibacy in the one, and of a redundant 
population and consequent pauperism, in the other. 

" Marriage," says Dr. Johnson, " is the best state for a 
man in general ; and every man is a worse man, in propor- 
tion as he is unfit for the married state." It may be doubted, 
however, whether another of his positions could be main- 
tained — " that marriages in general would be as happy, and 
often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, 
upon a due consideration of character and circumstances, 
without the parties having any choice in the matter." 

In the pressure that now weighs upon all persons of limited 
fortune, sisters, nieces, and daughters, are the only commo- 
dities that our friends are willing to bestow upon us for 
nothing, and which we cannot afford to accept, even gratui- 
tously. It seems to have been the same, at a former period, 
in France. Maitre Jean Picard tells us that, when he was 
returning from the funeral of his wife, doing his best to look 
disconsolate, such of the neighbours as had grown-up 
daughters and cousins came to him, and kindly implored 
him not to be inconsolable, as they could give him a second 
wife. — " Six weeks after," says Maitre Jean, " I lost my cow, 
and, though I really grieved upon this occasion, not one of 
them offered to give me another.". 

It has been recorded by some anti-connubial wag, that 
when two widowers were once condoling together, on the 
recent bereavement of their wives, one of them exclaimed, 
with a sigh, " Well may I bewail my loss, for I had so few 



236 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

differences with the dear deceased, that the last day of my 
marriage was as happy as the first." — " There I surpass you," 
said his friend, " for the last day of mine was happier / " 

MARTYR — that which all religions have furnished in 
about equal proportions, so much easier is it to die for 
religion than to live for it. Our high church conservatives 
cry out, with a lusty voice, " Touch not that which has been 
cemented by the blood of the holy martyrs ! " Why, these 
very martyrs, whose devotedness proves nothing but their 
sincerity, died in the cause of reform ; and yet their example 
is cited as a warning against it ! If their blood appeal to us 
at all, it may rather be supposed to cry out against the 
monstrous abuses of that Christianity, for whose cause they 
became martyrs. 

MASQUERADE — a synonyme for life and civilised 
society. There are two sorts of masquerade, simulation, or 
pretending to be what you are not : and dissimulation, or con- 
cealing what you are ; and we are all mummers under one or 
the other of these categories, excepting a few performers at the 
two extremes of life— those v/ho are above, and those who 
are beneath all regard for appearances. As a secret consci- 
ousness of their defects is always prompting hypocrites to 
disguise themselves in some assumed virtue, the only way to 
discover their real character, is to read them backwards, like 
a Hebrew book. 

Many masqueraders on the stage of real life betray them- 
selves by overacting their part. With religious pretenders 
this is more especially the case, and for an obvious reason : 
they increase the outward and visible sign, in proportion as 
they feel themselves deficient in the inward and spiritual 
grace. Can we wonder at their sanctimonious looks, and 
puritanical severity ? Even when they flounder and fail in 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 237 

their hypocrisy, they would persuade us that their very blun- 
ders proceed from a heavenly impulse. They remind one of 
the fat friar, who being about to mount his mule, called upon 
his patron saint to assist him, and gave such a vigorous 
spring at the same time, that he fell over on the other side, 
when he exclaimed with an air of complacency, " Hallo ! the 
good saint has helped me too much ! " 

So difficult is it to avoid overacting our part, that we can- 
not always escape this error, when we are agents and acces- 
saries, instead of principals, in imposing upon the world. 
The Regent of France, intending to go to a masquerade in 
the character of a lackey, and expressing an anxious wish to 
remain undetected the Abbe Dubois, suggested that this 
object might easily be attained, if he would allow him to go 
as his master, and to give him two or three kicks before 
the whole company. This was arranged accordingly, but 
the pretended master applied his foot so rudely and so often, 
that the Regent was fain to exclaim, " Gently, gently, Mon- 
sieur l'Abbe' ! you are disguising me too much ! " 

MASTER. — Being our own master, means that we are at 
liberty to be the slave of our own follies, caprices and passions. 
Generally speaking, a man cannot have a worse or more 
tyrannical master than himself. As our habits and luxuries 
domineer over us, the moment we are in a situation to indulge 
them, few people are in reality so dependent as the inde- 
pendent. Poverty and subjection debar us from many vices 
by the impossibility of giving way to them : when we are 
rich, and free from the domination of others, we are corrupted 
and oppressed by ourselves. There was some philosophy, 
therefore, in the hen-pecked husband, who being asked why 
he had placed himself so completely under the government 
of his wife, answered, " To avoid the worse slavery of being 
under my own." 



238 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

MEDICAL PRACTICE— guessing at Nature's intentions 
and wishes, and then endeavouring to substitute man's. 

MELANCHOLY— ingratitude to Heaven.— 

O impious ingrates ! cast your eyes 

On the. fair earth — the seas — the skies, 

And if the vision fail to prove 

A Maker of unbounded love ; — 

If in the treasures scattered wide, 

To guests of earth, and air, and tide ; 

If in the charms, with various zest, 

To every sense of man addressed, 

Ye will not see the wish to bless 

With universal happiness, 

Nor judge that mortals best fulfil 

A bountiful Creator's will, 

When, with a cheerful gratitude, 

They taste the pleasures He has strew'd, 

What can avail the wit, the sage, 

The love of man, the sacred page, 

When, by such evidence assailed, 

Your God and all His works have failed ! 

As a good antidote to gloomy anticipations, we should all 
of us do well to recollect the saying of Sir Thomas More, — 

1 ' If evils come not — then our fears are vain, 
And if they do — fear but augments the pain." 

MEMORY. — Rochefoucauld says, " Every one complains 
of his memoiy, no one of his judgment." And why ? Be- 
cause we consider the former as depending upon nature; and 
the latter upon ourselves. Alleged want of memory is a most 
convenient refuge for our self-love, since we can always throw 
it as a cloak over our ignorance. It is astonishing how 
much people are in the habit of forgetting what they never 
knew. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 239 

" Strange," says the same writer, " that we can always 
remember the smallest thing that has happened to ourselves, 
and yet not recollect how often we have repeated it to the 
same person." 

It is a benevolent provision of nature, that in old age the 
memory enjoys a second spring — a second childhood, and 
that while we forget all passing occurrences, many of which 
are but painful concomitants of old age, we have a vivid and 
delightful recollection of all the pleasures of youth. Many a 
greybeard, who seems to be lost in vacancy, as he sits silently 
twiddling his thumbs, is in fact chewing the mental cud of 
past happiness, and enjoying a tranquil gratification, which 
youngsters might well envy. 

Objects become shadowy to the bodily eye, as they are 
more remote, but to the mental eye of age, the most distant 
are the most distinct. A man of eighty may forget that he 
was seventy, but he never forgets that he was once a boy. 
Who can doubt the immortality of the soul, when we see that 
the mind can thus pass out of bodily decrepitude into a state 
of rejuvenescence ? for this process amounts to a Palinge- 
nesia — a partial new birth out of a partial decease, prepara- 
tory to a total resurrection out of total dissolution. 

MINDS. — Large ones, like pictures, are seen best at a 
distance. Their beauties are thus enhanced, and their 
blemishes concealed, — a process which is reversed by a close 
inspection. This is the reason, to say nothing of envious 
motives, why we generally undervalue our contemporaries., 
and overrate the ancients. 

MIRROR.— John Taylor relates in his Records, that 
having restored sight to a boy who had been born blind, the 
lad was perpetually amusing himself with a hand-glass, 
calling his own reflection his little man, and enquiring why 



2 4 o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

he could make it do everything that he did except shut its 
eyes. A French lover, making a present of a mirror to his 
mistress, sent with it a poetical quatrain, which may be thus 
paraphrased : — ■ 

" This mirror my object of love will unfold, 
Whensoe'er your regard it allures : — 
Oh ! would, when I'm gazing, that I might behold 
On its surface the object of yozirs/" 

But the following old epigram, on the same subject, is in a 
much finer strain : — 

" When I revolve this evanescent state, 
How fleeting is its form, how short its date ! 
My being and my stay dependant still, 
Not on my own, but on another's will ; 
I ask myself, as I my image view, 
Which is the real shadow of the two ?" 



MISADVENTURE, Mischance, and Misfortune— are all 
the daughters of Misconduct, and sometimes the mothers 
of Goodluck, Prosperity, and Advancement. To be thrown 
upon one's oAvn resources, is to be cast into the very lap 
of Fortune ; for our faculties then undergo a develop- 
ment, and display an energy, of which they were previously 
unsusceptible. Our minds are like certain drugs and per- 
fumes, which must be crushed before they evince their 
vigour, and put forth their virtues. Lundy Foot, the cele- 
brated snuff manufacturer, originally kept a small tobacco- 
nist's shop at Limerick. One night, his house, which was 
uninsured, was burnt to the ground. As he contemplated 
the smoking ruins on the following morning, in a state bor- 
dering on despair, some of the poor neighbours, groping 
among the embers for what they could find, stumbled upon 
several canisters of unconsumed, but half-baked snuff, which 






OR, HEADS AND TALES. 241 

they tried, and found it so grateful to their noses, that they 
loaded their waistcoat pockets with the spoil. Lundy Foot, 
roused from his stupor, at length imitated their example, and 
took a pinch of his own property, when he was instantly 
struck by the superior pungency and flavour it had acquired 
from the great heat to which it had been exposed. Trea- 
suring up this valuable hint, he took another house in a place 
called Black Yard, and preparing a large oven for the pur- 
pose, set diligently about the manufacture of that high-dried 
commodity, which soon became widely known as Black 
Yard snuff; a term subsequently corrupted into the more 
familiar word — Blackguard. Lundy Foot, making his cus- 
tomers pay literally through the nose, raised the price of his 
production, took a larger house in Dublin, and ultimately 
made a handsome fortune„by having been ruined. 

MISANTHROPE.— Quite unworthy of Goethe's genial 
and penetrative mind is his misanthropical remark, that 
" each of us, the best as well as the worst, hides within him 
something, some feeling, some remembrance, which, if it 
were known, would make you hate him." More consonant 
would it have been to truth, as well as to an enlightened 
spirit of humanism, had he reversed the proposition, and 
exclaimed, in the words of Shakspeare — 

' ' There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
Would men observingly distil it out ! " 

Law's observation, "that every man knows something 
worse of himself than he is sure of in others," savours not of 
misanthropy, but of that doubly beneficial feeling which 
inculcates individual humility, and universal charity. 

Rochefoucauld, and misanthropical writers of the same 
class, cannot succeed in giving any man, of a generous and 

R 



242 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

clear intellect, an unfavourable opinion of human nature. 
Like the workers of tapestry, who always behold the wrong 
side, they themselves may see nothing but unfinished out- 
lines, coarse materials, crooked ends, and glaring defects, 
and yet produce a portrait which, to those who contemplate 
it in front, and from a proper point of view, shall be full of 
grace, beauty, harmony, and proportion. 

MISER — one who, though he loves himself better than 
all the world, uses himself worse ; for he lives like a pauper, 
in order that he may enrich his heirs, whom he naturally 
hates, because he knows that they hate him, and sigh for his 
death. In this respect, misers have been compared to 
leeches, which, when they get sick and die, disgorge, in a 
minute, the blood they have been so long sucking up. La 
Bruyere tersely says — " Jeune on conserve pour la meil- 
lesse : vieux on kpargne fioitr la mort." 

Pithy enough was the reply of the avaricious old man, 
who, being asked by a nobleman of doubtful courage what 
pleasure he found in amassing riches which he never used, 
answered — " Much the same that your lordship has in wearing 
a sword." 

Perhaps the severest reproach ever made to a miser, was 
uttered by Voltaire. At a subscription of the French 
Academy for some charitable object, each contributor 
putting in a loins d'or, the collector, by mistake, made a 
second application to a member noted for his penuriousness. 
— " I have already paid," exclaimed the latter, with some 
asperity. — " I beg your pardon," said the applicant : " I have 
no doubt you paid ; I believe it, though I did not see it." — 
" And I saw it, and do not believe it," whispered Voltaire. 

MISFORTUNE— is but another word for the follies, 
blunders, and vices, which, with a greater blindness, we 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 24.3 

attribute to the blind goddess, to the fates, to the stars, to 
any one, in short, but ourselves. Our own head and heart 
are the heaven and earth which we accuse, and make respon- 
sible for all our calamities. 

The prudent make the reverses by which they have been 
overthrown supply a basis for the restoration of their fallen 
fortunes, as the lava which has destroyed a house often fur- 
nishes the materials for rebuilding it. Fools and profligates, 
on the contrary, seek solace for their troubles, by plunging 
into sensual and gross pleasures, as the wounded buffalo 
rolls himself in the mud. 

The misfortune of the mischievous and evil-minded, is the 
good fortune of the virtuous ; the failure of the guilty, is the 
success of the innocent : to pity, therefore, the former, is, in 
some sort, to injure the latter, and to destroy the effect of 
the great moral lesson afforded by both. Let us keep our 
sympathies for the sufferings of the good. 

All men might be better reconciled to their fate, if they 
would recollect that there are two species of misfortune, at 
which we ought never to repine ; — viz., that which we can, 
and that which we cannot, remedy; regret being, in the 
former case, unnecessary, in the latter, unavailing. 

The same vanity which leads us to assign our misfortunes 
or misconduct to others, prompts us to attribute all our lucky 
chances to our own talent, prudence, and forethought. Not 
a word of the fates or stars when we are getting rich, and 
everything goes on prosperously. So deeply-rooted in our 
nature is the tendency to make others responsible for our 
own misdeeds, that we lapse into the process almost uncon- 
sciously. When the clergyman has committed a peccadillo, 
he is doubly severe towards his congregation, and does vica- 
rious penance in the persons of his flock. Men scold their 
children, servants, and dependants, for their own errors ; 
coachmen invariably punish their horses after they them- 



244 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

selves have made any stupid blunder in driving them ; and 
even children, when they have tumbled over a chair, revenge 
themselves for their awkwardness, by beating and kicking 
the impassive furniture. Wine, the discoverer of truth, some- 
times brings out this universal failing in a manner equally 
signal and ludicrous. An infant being brought to christen 
to a country curate, at a time when he was somewhat over- 
come by early potations, he was unable to find the service oi 
Baptism in the book ; and, after fumbling for some time, 
peevishly exclaimed — " Confound the brat ! what is the 
matter with it ? I never, in all my life, knew such a trouble- 
some child to christen ! " 

MISSIONS, Religious — an attempt to produce, in dis- 
tant and unenlightened nations, a uniformity of opinion on 
subjects upon which the missionaries themselves are at fierce 
and utter variance ; thus submitting a European controversy 
of 1800 years to the decision of a synod of savages. Where 
the missionary begins with civilising and reclaiming the 
people among whom he is cast, he cannot fail to improve 
their temporal condition, and he is likely to contribute to 
their spiritual welfare ; neither of which objects can be 
attained by the hasty zealot, who commences by attempting 
to teach the five points of Calvinism to barbarians unable 
to count their five fingers. 

There is no reason to suppose, that the rapid conversion 
of the whole world to Christianity forms any part of the 
scheme of Providence, since, in eighteen centuries, so little 
comparative progress has been made towards its accom- 
plishment. Still less shall we be warranted in concluding, 
that all those who remain in spiritual darkness will be 
eternally shut out from the mercy of their Creator, if we duly 
perpend the spirit of the Scriptures — "The Gentiles, which 
have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 245 

law." Rom. ii. 14. — " God is no respecter of persons; but in 
every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, 
is accepted with him." Acts x. 34, 35. — " If there be a 
willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, 
and not according to that he hath not." 2 Cor. viii. 12. 
And St. Paul seems to intimate that the Lord will accom- 
plish his own work of conversion in his own time — " I will 
put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts. 
And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and 
every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord ; for all 
shall know me, from the least to the greatest." Heb. viii. 
10, 11. 

It is to be feared, that the conduct of the Europeans among 
savage nations, especially if we recollect the horrors of the 
slave trade, will plead much more powerfully than the Gospel 
precepts of our missionaries. Even where our example has 
not nullified our doctrine, it is difficult to adapt the latter to 
the capacities of barbarians. We learn from " Earle's Resi- 
dence in New Zealand," that when some of the missionaries 
were expounding the horrors of Tophet and eternal fire, their 
auditors exclaimed — " We will have nothing to say to your 
religion. Such horrid punishments can only be meant for 
white men. We have none bad enough among us to deserve 
them ; but, as we have listened to you patiently, perhaps you 
will give us a blanket !" 

MODERATION, Religious— an unattainable medium, 
since the world seems to be divided between the enthusiastic 
and the indifferent, or those who have too much and those 
who have too little devotion. One party make religion their 
business ; the other make business their religion. Two com- 
mercial travellers meeting at an inn near Bristol, and con- 
versing upon spiritual subjects, one asked the other whether 
he belonged to the Wesleyan Methodists. " No," replied the 



246 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

man of business — " what little I do in the religious way is in 
the Unitarian line." 

MONASTERY — a house of ill-fame, where men are 
seduced from their public duties, and fall naturally into 
guilt, from attempting to preserve an unnatural innocence. 
"It is as unreasonable for a man to go into a Carthusian 
Convent for fear of being immoral, as for a man to cut off his 
hands for fear he should steal. When that is done, he has 
no longer any merit, for though it is out of his power to 
steal, he may all his life be a thief in his heart. All 
severity that does not tend to increase good or prevent evil, 
is idle." 

MONEY — a very good servant, but a bad master. It 
may be accused of injustice towards mankind, inasmuch as 
there are only a few who make false money, whereas money 
makes many men false. We hate to be cheated, not so much 
for the value of the commodity, as, because it makes others 
appear superior to ourselves. Being defrauded would be 
nothing, were it not so galling to be outwitted. Crates, the 
Greek philosopher, left his money in the hands of a friend, 
with orders to pay it to his children in case they should be 
fools ; for, said he, if they are philosophers, they will not 
want it. Money is more indispensable now than it was then, 
but, still, a wise man will have it in his head rather than his 
heart. 

MORALITY — keeping up appearances in this world, or 
becoming suddenly devout when we imagine that we may 
be shortly summoned to appear in the next. 

MORAL CHOLERA.—" It is easier," says St. Gregory 
Nazianzen, "to contract the vices of others than to impart to 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 247 

them our own virtue ; just as it is easier to catch their dis- 
eases than to communicate to them our own good health." * 
Our anxiety to avoid bodily infection can only be exceeded 
by our total indifference to that which is mental. There is a 
moral, as well as a physical cholera, and yet, while we are 
frightened to death at the approach of the one, we voluntarily 
expose ourselves, during our whole life, to the attacks of the 
other. One of our jails was lately emptied because it con- 
tained a single case of Asiatic cholera ; all the rest are kept 
crowded, until the patients, labouring under moral cholera, 
shall have corrupted the whole mass of their fellow prisoners. 
It seems to be the object of these institutions to propagate 
and disseminate the miasmata of vice, instead of preventing 
their circulation. Such of our malefactors as have the 
disease, in the natural way, are employed to inoculate the 
others, and then we wonder that there is a plague in the 
land. If an offender have broken one of the commandments,, 
we guard against a repetition of the crime by sending him to 
a place where he not only learns to break the other nine, but 
to break prison also, when he presently begins to exercise 
his newly-acquired knowledge upon the community. We 
hang and transport rogues on a large scale, but we produce 
them on a still more extensive one. 

MOTHERS. — Four good mothers have given birth to 
four bad daughters : — Truth has produced hatred ; Success, 
pride ; Security, danger ; and Familiarity, contempt. And, 
on the contrary, four bad mothers have produced as many 
good daughters, for Astronomy is the offspring of astrology ; 
Chymistry of alchemy ; Freedom, of oppression ; Patience, of 
long-suffering. 

* Facilius est vitium contrahere quam virtutem impertire ; quemad- 
modum facilius est morbo alieno infici, quam sanitatem largiri. 



248 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

MOUNTAINEERS — are rarely conquered, not so much 
on account of the facility for defence afforded by their craggy 
heights, as from their hardier habits and greater patriotism. 
In the rich lowlands, art becomes the principal pursuit ; art 
leads to riches and luxury, and these to enervation and sub- 
jection. On the high and barren places, man's occupations 
render him more conversant with nature, an intercourse 
which inseparably attaches him to " the mountain nymph — 
sweet liberty." — When in danger of being worsted, High- 
landers are renovated, like Antaeus, by a touch of their native 
earth ; and so might we, when attacked by the cares and 
sickliness of money-getting and money-spending, if we would 
only quit our crowded cities, take a walk in the fields, and 
touch the earth. When the leafless and embittering metro- 
polis turns our moral honey into gall, we may always 
reverse the process by straying amid the flowers of the 
country. 

MOUTH — a useless instrument to some people, in its 
capacity, by the organs of speech, of rendering ideas audible ; 
but of special service to them in its other capacity of render- 
ing victuals invisible. 

MUSES, The — nine blue-stocking old maids, who seem 
to have understood all arts except that of getting husbands, 
unless theit celibacy may be attributed to their want of 
marriage portions. These venerable young ladies are loudly 
and frequently invoked by poetasters, writers in albums and 
annuals, and other scribblers; but, like Mungo in the farce, 
each of them replies, " Massa, massa ! — the more you call, 
the more me won't come." One of our tourists, at Paris, 
observing that there were only statues of eight muses on the 
Opera House, which was then incomplete, inquired of a 
labouring mason what had become of the ninth. " Monsieur, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 249 

je ne vous dirois pas" replied the man ; — " mat's firobable- 
ment die £ amuse avec Afiollon!" — An English opera- 
tive would hardly have given such an answer. A gentle- 
man once expressed his surprise that, in so rich a literary 
country as England, the Muses should not attain their 
due honours. — " Impossible ! " cried a whist-playing old 
lady — " They are nine, and of course cannot reckon 
honours." 

MUSIC. — "Music, like man himself, derives all its dignity 
from its subordination to a loftier and more spiritual power. 
When, divorcing itself from poetry, it first sought to be a 
principal instead of an accessory, to attach more importance 
to a sound than to a thought, to supersede sentiment by 
skill, to become, in short, man's play-fellow, rather than his 
assistant teacher, a sensual instead of an intellectual gratifi- 
cation, its corruption, or at least its application to less 
ennobling purposes, had already commenced. As the art of 
music, strictly so called, was more assiduously cultivated, as 
it became more and more perplexed with complicated in- 
tricacies, only understood by a few, and less and less an 
exponent of the simple feelings and sentiments that are 
intelligible to all, it may be said to have lost in general 
utility and value, what it gained in science, and to have 
been gradually dissolving that union between sound 
and sense, which imparted to it its chief interest and 
influence." 

So entirely do I agree with the writer from whom the 
above extract is taken, that I have often rode back after a 
morning concert, to my residence in the country, that I might 
enjoy the superior pleasures of natural music. It was upon 
such an occasion, while strolling in the fields, that my 
thoughts involuntarily arranged themselves, as the novelists 
say, into the following stanzas : — 



THE TIN TRUMPET; 

I. 

There's a charm and zest when the singer thrills 
The throbbing breast with his dulcet trills, 
And a joy more rare than the sweetest air 

Art ever combined, 
When the poet enhances, 
By beautiful fancies, 
The strain, and entrances 

Both ear and mind. 
Thy triumph, O music ! is ne'er complete, 
Till the pleasures of sense and of intellect meet. 

II. 

Delights like these, to the poor unknown, 
Are reserved for the rich and great alone, 
In diamonds and plumes, who fill the rooms 

Of some grand abode, 
And think that a guinea, 
To hear Paganini 
Or warbling Rubini, 

Is well bestow'd ; 
Since then, only then, they the pleasures share 
Of science, voice, instrument — equally rare. 

III. 

But the peasant at home, in gratuitous boon, 
Plas an opera dome and orchestral saloon, 
With melody gay from the peep of day 

Until evening dim : 
Whenever frequented, 
With flowers it is scented, 
Its scenes all invented 

And painted by Him, 
Who suspended its blazing lamps on high, 
And its ceiling formed of the azure sky. 

IV. 

Oh ! what can compare with the concert sublime, 
When waters, earth, air, all in symphony chime ? 



OR, HEADS AND TALES-. 251 

The wind, herds, and bees, with the rustle of trees, 

Varied music prolong ; 
On the spray as it swingeth, 
Each bird sweetly singeth, 
The sky-lark down flingeth 

A torrent of song, — 
Till the transports of music, devotion, and love, 
Waft the rapturous soul to the regions above. 

MUSICIANS — machines for producing sounds ; human 
instruments, generally so completely absorbed by their own 
art, that they are either ignorant of all others, or undervalue 
them. In a "company at Vienna, where the conversation was 
nearly engrossed by the praises of Goethe, Catalani ex- 
claimed, with great naivete \ " Who is this Goethe ? — I have 
never heard any of his music!" A poor German composer 
being introduced to Mozart, whom he considered the greatest 
man in the world, was so overcome with awe, that he dared 
not lift his eyes from the ground, but remained, for some 
time, stammering — " Ah, Imperial Majesty ! Ah, Imperial 
Majesty!" In the same spirit Cafarielli, when told that 
Farinelli had been made a sort of Prime Minister in Spain, 
replied — " No man deserves it better, for his voice is abso- 
lutely unrivalled." 

MYSTERY. — To him who has been sated and dis- 
appointed by the actual and the intelligible, there is a pro- 
found charm in the unattainable and the inscrutable. Infants 
stretch out their hands for the moon; children delight in 
puzzles and riddles, even when they cannot discover their 
solution; and the children of a larger growth desire no 
better employment than to follow their example, however it 
may lead them astray. The mystery of the Egyptian hiero- 
glyphics was a frequent source of idolatry ; the type being 
taken for the prototype, until leeks and onions received the 



252 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

homage originally meant for their divine Giver. The attrac- 
tive mystery of Irving's unknown tongues has engendered a 
fanaticism, at which we need the less wonder, if we remem- 
ber the confession of the pious Baxter, that, in order to 
awaken an interest in his congregation, he made it a rule, 
in every sermon, to say something that was above their 
capacity. 

There is a glorious epoch of our existence, wherein the 
comprehensible appears common and insipid, and in 
abandoning ourselves to the enthusiasm of imagination, we 
attain a middle state between despair and deification ; — a 
beatific ecstacy, when the spirit longs to fly upward — when 
the finite yearns for the infinite, the limited in intellect for 
the omniscient, the helpless for the omnipotent, the real for 
the impossible. Thus to flutter above the world, on the 
extended wings of fancy, is to be half a deity. And yet the 
forward-springing and ardent mind, which, running a-head 
of its contemporaries, stands upon the forehead of the age to 
come, only renders itself the more conspicuous mark for 
obloquy and assault. Like a Shrovetide cock, tethered to the 
earth, it can but partially raise itself, when it again sinks 
down, amid the sticks and stones of its cruel persecutors. 



AMES. — The character of different eras may, 
to a certain extent, be discovered by the various 
ways in which our ambitious nobility, and 
others, have endeavoured to achieve an endur- 
ing celebrity. When chivalry was the rage, 
they gave their names to new inventions in arms and armour : 
— now-a-days, they court notoriety by standing godfathers to 
some new fashion in clothes and cookery, and eclipsing all 
competitors in their coats, cabs, and castors. A ducal 
Campbell, whose ancestors were always spilling hot blood, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 253 

endeavours to win celebrity in another way, by inventing an 
Argyle for preserving hot gravy; a Sandwich embalms his 
name between two slices of bread and ham ; a Pembroke 
immortalises himself in a table ; — a Skelmersdale goes down 
to future ages, like an Egyptian divinity, in a chair ; — a 
Standish, surpassing the bottle conjuror, creeps into an ink- 
stand, by which means " he still keeps his memory BLACK 
in our souls ;" — a Stanhope expects to be wheeled down to 
posterity, by harnessing his name to a gig of a peculiar con- 
struction ; — a Petersham, hitting upon the easiest device by 
which he could prove to after ages that he wore a head, gives 
his title to a hat. Another nobleman, clarum et venerabile 
nomen, one who was said to have driven all the tailors into 
the suburbs, by compelling them to live on the skirts of the 
town, wraps up his name in the mummy-cloth of a Spencer, 
and secures a long-enduring fame by inventing a short 
coat. 

It is not generally known, that names may be affected, 
and even completely changed, by the state of the weather. 
Such, however, is, unquestionably, the case. The late Mr. 
Suet, the actor, going once to dine about twenty miles from 
London, and being only able to get an outside place on the 
coach, arrived in such a bedraggled state, from an incessant 
rain, and so muffled up in great coats and pocket handker- 
chiefs, that his friend inquired, doubtingly — "Are you Suet ?" 
— " No !" replied the wag — " I'm dripping!" 

Contracting a name sometimes lengthens the idea. Kean 
mentions an actor of the name of Lancaster, whom his com- 
rades called Lanky, for shortness. 

NEGRO — a human being treated as a brute, because he 
is black, by inhuman beings, and greater brutes, who hap- 
pen to be white. The Ethiopians paint the devil white; and 
they have much better reason for making him look like 



254 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

a European, than we have for giving him an African com- 
plexion. 

NOBLEMAN — one who is indebted to his ancestors for 
a name and an estate, and sometimes to himself, for being 
unworthy of both. It was said of an accomplished and ami- 
able Earl, who was weak enough to be always boasting his 
title and his birth — " What a pity he is a nobleman ; he 
really deserves to have been born a commoner." 

NON-RESIDENCE and PLURALITIES — the best 
securities for an effectual Church Reform. " These scandal- 
ous practices," says Bishop Burnet, "are sheltered among 
us by many colours of law ; whereas the Church of Rome, 
from whence we had these and many other abuses, has freed 
herself from this under which we labour, to our great and 
just reproach. This is so shameful a profanation of holy 
things, that it ought to be treated with detestation and 
horror. Do such men think on the vows they made at their 
ordination, on the rules in the Scriptures, or on the nature of 
their functions, or that it is a cure of souls ? How long, how 
long shall this be the peculiar disgrace of our Church, which, 
for aught I know, is the only Church in the world that tole- 
rates it?" — Hist, of his own Ti?nes, p. 646. 

When, by an official return to Parliament, the great extent 
of these scandalous abuses was first made known to Lord 
Harrowby, " it struck me," says he, " with surprise — I could 
almost say with horror." Alas ! when temporal peers are 
horror-struck by the scandals that are tolerated and practised 
by their spiritual teachers ! 

Many ecclesiastics, particularly from Ireland, whose influ- 
ence or command of money has procured them a handsome 
tithe income, and who are leading idle and luxurious lives, at 
places of fashionable resort, either in England or upon the 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 255 

Continent, without ever dreaming of their flock, except as 
to the best mode of fleecing them, boast, nevertheless, of 
being staunch supporters of the Church. Verily, it must be 
as its buttresses, rather than its pillars, since they are never 
seen inside the sacred building. The Rev. Dr. England, 

of H , as one of his parishioners very logically remarked, 

is the only divine who has a valid excuse for non-residence, 
and always employing curates, since we have the authority 
of Lord Nelson for asserting, that " England expects every 
man to do his duty." 

It is related of Philip of Narni, that he once preached a 
sermon upon non-residence, before Pope Gregory XV., which 
had the effect of driving thirty Bishops to their respective 
dioceses the day after. Alas ! we have few preachers and no 
bishops of this stamp in Protestant England. 

NONSENSE — sense that happens to differ from our own, 
supposing that we have any. If matter and mind, blending 
together in two incoherent substances, form the connecting 
link that separates physics from metaphysics, the real from 
the imaginary, and the visible from the unapparent, it follows 
as a precursive corollary, that the learned comments of the 
scholiasts, the dogmas of theologians, and the elaborate 
treatises of the Byzantine historians, can never be recognized 
as evidences of a foregone conclusion. Statistics and algebra, 
as well as logic and analogy, equally rebut the inference that 
in a case of so complicated a nature, the deposition of a mere 
functionary can be received as the spontaneous evidence of 
a compulsory principal. Cases may doubtless arise, where 
legal deductions, drawn from federal rather than from feudal 
institutes, will vary the superstructure upon which the whole 
theory was based ; but in the present instance, such objec- 
tions must be deemed rather captious than analytical. On 
the whole it is presumed that the reader, who has carefully 



256 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

perused and reconsidered our arguments, will be at little loss 
to understand the nature of the word, of which we have 
written this clear and explanatory definition. Should he, 
however, not be satisfied, he is referred to Voltaire's Galima- 
thias, beginning " Unjour quHl ' faisoit mitt" &c. 

NON SEQUITUR — a grammatical Adam, being a 
relative without an ante-cedent : — something that is apropos 
to nothing, and comes after without following from. Of this 
figure there are various sorts ; but the most common form is 
putting the cart before the horse, or taking the effect for the 
cause. The industrious, prudent, and enlightened people of 
this country have thriven and grown great and rich, not 
always in consequence of good, but in spite of bad govern- 
ment. Their native shrewdness and energy have enabled 
them to triumph over impediments, political, fiscal, and com- 
mercial, which would have completely crushed a less active 
and enterprising nation. When, therefore, they are desired 
to reverence the mis-governed and the unreformed institu- 
tions, to which alone they are told to consider themselves 
indebted for all the advantages they enjoy, one cannot help 
recalling the non sequitur of the Carmelite Friar, who in- 
stanced as a striking proof of the superintendence and good- 
ness of Providence, that it almost invariably made a river 
run completely through the middle of every large city. 
Somewhat akin to this instance of naivete was the reply of 
the Birmingham boy, who being asked whether some shillings, 
which he tendered at a shop, were good, answered with 
great simplicity, " Ay, that they be, for I seed father make 
'em all this morning." 

NOVELTY — what we recover from oblivion. We can 
fish little out of the river Lethe that has not first been thrown 
into it. The world of discovery goes round without advancing, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 257 

like a squirrel in its cage, and the revolution of one cen- 
tury differs but little from that of its predecessor. New 
performers mount the stage, but the pieces and its accom- 
paniments remain pretty much the same. Trumpets and 
taxes are the characteristics of the present era. No se- 
curity without immense standing armies, no armies with- 
out pay, no pay without taxes. It is a grievance which we 
cannot avoid, and of which, therefore, it were as well to 
say nothing ; but if Tacitus is not silent on the subject, who 
can be? " Neque quies gentium" says that historian, " sine 
armisy neque anna sine stifiendiis, neque stifiendia sine tri- 
butis haberi queunt." 

In the two extremes of life we have the most acute sense 
of novelty. To the boy all is new : to the old man, when 
this world no longer offers variety or change, is presented the 
most stimulating of all novelties — the contemplation of a new 
existence. 

Shakspeare " exhausted worlds, and then imagined new f 
but this is a privilege conceded to none but the chosen sons 
of genius. Common writers can only become original, when 
they have exhausted nature, by becoming unnatural. Like a 
mountebank at a fair, they surprise our attention by their 
extravagance, but they cannot keep it. We shrug our 
shoulders, and forget them. Many are the writers, never- 
theless, who prefer a momentary fool's cap to a distant 
laurel. 

NOVEMBER — the period at which most Englishmen 
take leave of the sun for nine months, and not a few of them 
for ever. A demure Scottish lady having been introduced to 
the Persian ambassador when in London, exclaimed with an 
incredulous air, " Is it possible that ye are such idolators in 
Persia as to worship the sun ? " " Yes, madam," was the 
reply, " and so you would in England, if you ever saw him." 



258 THE TIN TRUMPET; 



f} ATH, Legal — making the awful and infinite 
Deity a party to all the trivial and vulgar im- 
pertinences of human life : an act of profanation 
equally required from a churchwarden and an 
archbishop, from a petty constable and the 
chief justice of England. " Let the law," says Paley, " con- 
tinue its own functions, if they be thought requisite ; but 
let it spare the solemnity of an oath, and, where it is neces- 
sary, from the want of something better to depend upon, to 
accept a man's word or own account, let it annex to pre- 
varication penalties proportionable to the public consequence 
of the offence." 

Where they are made a test of religious belief, for the 
purpose of excluding any class of our fellow-subjects from 
their civil rights, oaths, being equally opposed to Christi- 
anity, policy, and justice, ought to be totally and finally 
abolished. He who first devised the oath of abjuration, 
profligately boasted that he had framed a test which should 
" damn one half of the nation, and starve the other ;V- a 
vaunt well worth the consideration of those who have placed 
themselves within the first clause of his prophecy. 

To the utterance of oaths, as execrations, a practice 
equally hateful for its blasphemy and vulgarity, there seems 
to be little other inducement than its gratuitous sinfulness, 
since it communicates no pleasure, and removes no un- 
easiness, neither elevates the speaker, nor depresses the 
hearer. " Go," said Prince Henry, the son of James I., when 
one of his courtiers swore bitterly at being disappointed of a 
tennis match — " Go ! all the pleasures of earth are not worth 
a single oath." 

OBEDIENCE, Military — must be implicit and unreason- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 259 

ing. " Sir," said the Duke of Wellington to an officer of 
engineers, who urged the impossibility of executing the 
directions he had received, " I did not ask your opinion, I 
gave you my orders, and I expect them to be obeyed." It 
might have been difficult, however, to yield a literal obe- 
dience to the adjutant of a volunteer corps, who, being 
doubtful whether he had distributed muskets to all the men, 
cried out — " All you that are without arms will please to hold 
up your hands." 

ODOURS, Bad — the silent voice of nature, made audible 
by the nose. The worst may, in some degree, be sweetened 
to our sense, by a recollection of the important part they 
perform in the economy of the world. Those emitted by 
dead animals attract birds and beasts of prey from an 
almost incredible distance, who not only soon remove the 
nuisance, but convert it into new life, beauty, and enjoy- 
ment. Should no such resource be at hand, as is often 
the case in inhabited countries, the pernicious effluvia dis- 
engaged from these decaying substances, occasion them to 
be quickly buried in the ground, where their organised 
forms are resolved into chemical constituents, and they are 
fitted to become the food of vegetables. The noxious gas 
is converted into the aroma of the flower, and that which 
threatened to poison the air, affords nourishment and de- 
light to man and beast. Animals are thus converted into 
plants, and plants again become animals ; — change of form 
and not extinction — or, rather, destruction for the sake of 
reproduction, being the system of nature. Pulverised human 
bones are now largely imported into England for manure, 
and the corn thus raised will again be eventually recon- 
verted into human bones. 

OLD AGE— need not necessarily be felt in the mind, as 

s 2 



2 6o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

in the body ; time's current may wear wrinkles in the face 
that shall not reach the heart : there is no inevitable de- 
crepitude or senility of the spirit, when its tegument feels 
the touches of decay. We sometimes talk of men falling 
into their second childhood, when we should rather say that 
they have never emerged from their first, but have always 
been in an intellectual nonage. Vigorous minds very rarely 
sink into imbecility, even in extreme age. Time seems 
rather to drag them backwards, to their youth, than forwards 
towards senility. Like the Glastonbury thorn, they flower in 
the Christmas of their days. Hear how beautifully the vener- 
able Goethe, in the Dedication to the first part of Faust, 
abandons himself to this Palingenesia. 

" Ye approach again, ye shadowy shapes, which once, in 
the morning of life, presented yourselves to my troubled 
view ! Shall I try, this time, to hold you fast ? Do I feel 
my heart still inclined towards that delusion ? Ye press 
forward ! well then, ye may hold dominion over me as ye 
arise around out of vapour and mist. My bosom feels 
youthfully agitated by the magic breath which atmospheres 
your train. 

" Ye bring with you the images of happy days, and many 
loved shades arise ; like to an old, half-expired tradition, 
rises First-love with Friendship in their company. The pang 
is renewed ; the plaint repeats the labyrinthine, mazy course 
of life, and names the dear ones who, cheated of fair hours 
by fortune, have vanished away before me. 

" They hear not the following lays — the souls to whom 
I sang the first. Dispersed is the friendly throng — the first 
echo, alas, has died away ! My sorrow voices itself to the 
stranger many : their very applause makes my heart sick ; 
and all that in other days rejoiced in my song — if still living, 
strays scattered through the world. 

"And a yearning, long unfelt, for that quiet, pensive, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 261 

Spirit-realm seizes me. 'Tis hovering even now, in half- 
formed tones, my lisping lay, like the ^Eolian harp. A 
tremor seizes me : tear follows tear ; the austere heart feels 
itself growing mild and soft. What I have, I see as in the 
distance ; and what is gone, becomes a reality to me." 

What a cordial is this apocalypse of youth to all " grave 
and reverend seniors !" — Why should any of us doubt 
that the mind may be progressive, even when the body 
loses ground ? If we are wiser to-day than yesterday, what 
is to prevent our being wiser to-morrow than to-day ? — 
Women rarely die during pregnancy ; and while the mind 
can be made to conceive and bear children, we may be 
assured that nature means to preserve its full vitality and 
power. 

Privation of friends by death, is the greatest trial of old 
age ; for, though new ones may succeed to their places, they 
cannot replace them. For this, however, as for all other 
sorrows, there is a consolation. When we are left behind, 
and feel as exiles upon earth, we are reconciled to the 
idea of quitting it, and yearn for that future home, where 
we shall be united to our predecessors, and whither our 
survivors will follow us. 

Old age is still comparative, and one man may be 
younger at eighty, than another at forty. " Ah ! madam ! " 
exclaimed the patriarch Fontenelle, when talking to a young 
and beautiful woman — " if I were but fourscore again ! " 

How powerful is sympathy ! The mere mention of this 
anecdote has sent me courting to the muse, and ha, 
thrown into verse what I had intended further to say on 
the subject of 

OLD AGE. 

Yes, I am old ; — my strength declines, 
And wrinkles tell the touch of time, 



26a THE UN TRUMPET; 

Yet might I fancy these the signs 

Not of decay, but manhood's prime ; 
For all within is young and glowing, 
Spite of old age's outward showing. 

Yes, I am old ; — the ball, the song, 
The turf, the gun, no more allure ; 

I shun the gay and gilded throng ; 
Yet, ah ! how far more sweet and pure 

Home's tranquil joys, and mental treasures, 

Than dissipation's proudest pleasures ! 

Yes, I am old ; — Ambition's call, — 

Fame, wealth, distinction's keen pursuit 

That once could charm and cheat me — all 
Are now detected, passive, mute. 

Thank God ! the passions and their riol 

Are barter'd for content and quiet. 

Yes, I am old ; — but as I press 
The vale of years with willing feet, 

Still do 1 find life's sorrows less, 

And all its hallow'd joys more sweet ; 

Since Time, for every rose he snatches, 

Takes fifty thorns, with all their scratches. 

My wife — God bless her ! is as dear 
As when I plighted first my truth ; 

I feel, in every child's career, 
The joys of renovated youth : 

And as to Nature — I behold hei 

With fresh delight as I grow older. 

Yes, I am old ; — and death hath ta'en 
Full many a friend, to memory dear ; 

Yet, when I die, 'twill soothe the pain 
Of quitting my survivors here, 

To think how all will be delighted, 

When in the skies again united ! 

Yes, I am old ; — experience now, 

That best of guides, hath made me sage, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 263 

And thus instructed, I avow 

My firm conviction, that old age, 
Of all our various terms of living, 
Deserves the warmest, best thanksgiving ! 



"OLD MEN"— says Rochefoucauld, "like to give good 
advice, as a consolation for being no longer in a con- 
dition to give a bad example." May we not turn the dictum 
of the writer against himself, and infer that he gave us 
all his bad advice from a contrary feeling? — Well may 
the portrait be dark, when the misanthrope draws from 
himself ! 

OMEN — the imaginary language of heaven speaking by 
signs. An oracle is the same, speaking by human tongues, 
but both have now become dumb. If we wish to know who 
believes in this Latin word, we must get our Latin answer by 
reading it backwards. 

OPINION — a capricious tyrant, to which, many a free- 
born Briton willingly binds himself a slave. Deeming it of 
much more importance to be valued than valuable; — 
holding opinion to be worthier than worth, we had rather 
stand well in the estimation of others, even of those whom 
we do not esteem, than of ourselves. This is, indeed, the 

" Meanness that soars, and pride that licks the dust." 

The greater the importance we attach to our opinions, the 
greater our intolerance, which is wrong, even when we are right, 
and doubly so when we are in error ; so that persecution for 
opinion's sake, can never be justifiable. Our own experience 
might teach us better, for every man has differed, at various 
times, from himself, as much as he ever has differed at any 
one time from others. 



264 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

Suffering others to think for us, when Heaven has supplied 
us with reason and a conscience for the express purpose of 
enabling us to think for ourselves, is the great fountain of all 
human error. "There cannot," says Locke, "be a more 
dangerous thing to rely on than the opinion of others, nor 
more likely to mislead one ; since there is much more false- 
hood and error among men than truth and knowledge ; and if 
the opinions and persuasions of others, whom we know and 
think well of, be a ground of assent, men have reason to be 
heathens in Japan, Mahometans in Turkey, Papists in 
Spain, Protestants in England, and Lutherans in Sweden." * 

Were a whole nation to start upon a new career of educa- 
tion, with mature faculties, and minds free from preposses- 
sions or prejudices, how much would be quickly abandoned 
that is now most stubbornly cherished ! If we have many 
opinions, in our present state, that have once been pro- 
scribed, it is presumable that we cling to many more which 
future generations will discard. The world is yet in its boy- 
hood — perhaps in its infancy ; and our fancied wisdom is but 
the babble of the nursery. However quickly we may take 
up an error, we abandon it slowly. As a man often feels a 
pain in the leg that has been long amputated, so does he fre- 
quently yearn towards an opinion after it has been cut off 
from his mind, — so true is it that 

" He that's convinced against his will, 
Is of the same opinion still." 

So wedded are some people to their own notions, that they 
will not have any persons for friends, or even for servants, 

who do not entertain similar views. Lord L makes a 

point of strictly cross-questioning his domestics, as to their 
religious and political faith, before he engages them. While 

* On the Human Understanding, 1. iv. c. xv. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 265 

residing on his Irish estates, a groom presented himself to be 
hired, resolving, beforehand, not to compromise himself by 
any inconsiderate replies. — " What are your opinions ?" was 
the peer's first demand. — " Indeed, then, your lordship's 
honour ! I have just none at all at all." — " Not any ! non- 
sense ! — you must have some, and I insist upon knowing 
them." — " Why, then, your honour's glory, they are for all 
the world just the same as your lordship's." — " Then you can 
have no objection to state them, and to confess frankly what 
is your way of thinking." — " Och ! and is it my way of think- 
ing you mane by my opinions ? — Why, then, I am exactly the 
same way of thinking as Pat Sullivan, your honour's game- 
keeper, for, says he to me, as I was coming up stairs, 
Murphy, says he, I'm thinking you'll never be paying me the 
two-and-twenty shillings I lent you, last Christmas was a 
twelvemonth. — Faith ! says I, Pat Sullivan ! I'm quite of 
your way of thinking." 

OPTIMISM — a devout conviction that, under the govern- 
ment of a benevolent and all-powerful God, everything con- 
duces ultimately to the best in the world he has created, and 
that mankind, the constant objects of his paternal care, are 
in a perpetual state of improvement, and increased happi- 
ness. This is a great and consoling principle, the summary 
of all religion and all philosophy, the reconciler of all mis- 
givings, the source of all comfort and consolation. To 
believe in it, is to realize its truth, so far as we are individu- 
ally concerned; and indeed it will mainly depend upon 
ourselves, whether or not everything shall be for the best. 
Let us cling to the moral of Parnell's hermit, rather than 
suffer our confidence in the divine goodness to be staggered 
by the farcical exaggerations of Voltaire's Candide. If the 
theory of the former be a delusion, it is, at least, a delightful 
one; and, for my own part — " malim cum Platone errare, 



a66 THE TIN TRUMPET;' 

quam cum aliis recte s entire" — where the error is of so con- 
solatory and elevating a description. 

An optimist may be wrong, but presumption and religion 
are in his favour ; nor can we positively pronounce anything 
to be for final evil, until the end of all things has arrived, 
and the whole scheme of creation is revealed to us. "Does 
not every architect complain of the injustice of criticising a 
building before it is half finished ? — Yet, who can tell what 
volume of the creation we are in at present, or what point 
the structure of our moral fabric has attained ? — Whilst we 
are all in a vessel that is sailing under sealed orders, we 
shall do well to confide implicitly in our government and 
Captain."* 

ORIGINALITY — unconscious or undetected imitation. 
Even Seneca complains, that the ancients had compelled 
him to borrow from them what they would have taken from 
him, had he been lucky enough to have preceded them. 
" Every one of my writings," says Goethe, in the same can- 
did spirit, " has been furnished to me by a thousand different 
persons, a thousand different things: the learned and the 
ignorant, the wise and the foolish, infancy and age, have 
come in turn, generally without having the least suspicion of 
it, to bring me the offering of their thoughts, their faculties, 
their experience : often have they sowed the harvest I have 
reaped. My work is that of an aggregation of human beings, 
taken from the whole of nature; it bears the name of 
Goethe." 

It is in the power of any writer to be original, by deserting 
nature, and seeking the quaint and the fantastical; but 
literary monsters, like all others, are generally short-lived. 
"When I was a young man," says Goldsmith, "being anxious 

* Ed. Review, 1. 309. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 267 

to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new proposi- 
tions ; but I soon gave this over, for I found that generally 
what was new was false." Strictly speaking, we may be 
original without being new : our thoughts may be our own, 
and yet common-place. 

ORTHODOXY — says a reverend writer, will cover a 
multitude of sins, but a cloud of virtues cannot cover the 
want of the minutest particle of orthodoxy :— whatever you 
do, be orthodox. Nevertheless, it might be easily shown, 
that all Christian Churches have suffered more by their zeal 
for orthodoxy, and by the violent methods taken to promote 
it, than from the utmost efforts of their greatest enemies. 



S " and Qs. — The origin of the phrase " Mind 
your Ps and Qs," is not generally known. In 
alehouses, where chalk scores were formerly 
marked upon the wall, or behind the door of the 
tap-room, it was customary to put these initial 
letters at the head of every man's account, to show the 
number of pints and quarts for which he was in arrears ; and 
we may presume many a friendly rustic to have tapped his 
neighbour on the shoulder, when he was indulging too freely 
in his potations, and to have exclaimed, as he pointed to the 
score — " Giles ! Giles ! mind your Ps and Qs." 

When Toby, the learned pig, was in the zenith of his 
popularity, a theatrical wag, who attended the performance, 
maliciously set before him some peas; a temptation which 
the animal could not resist, and which immediately occa- 
sioned him to lose his cue. The pig exhibiter remonstrated 
with the author of the mischief on the unfairness of what he 
had done, when he replied, that his only wish was, to see 
whether Toby knew his Ps from his Qs. 



268 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

PANACEA, Advertised — see Poison. There would be 
little comfort for the sick, either in body or mind, were there 
any truth in the averment, that philosophy, like medicine, 
has plenty of drugs and quack medicines, but few remedies, 
and hardly any specifics. So far from admitting this dis- 
couraging statement, a panacea may be prescribed, which, 
under ordinary circumstances, will generally prevent, and 
rarely fail to alleviate, most of the evils that flesh is heir to. 
The following are the simple ingredients: — occupation for 
the mind, exercise for the body, temperance and virtue for 
the sake of both. This is the magnum arcanicm of health 
and happiness. Half of our illness and misery arises from 
the perversion of that reason which was given to us as a pro- 
tection against both. We are led astray by our guide, and 
poisoned by our physician. 

PARENT. — It may be doubted, whether a man can fully 
appreciate the mysterious properties, and the thought-ele- 
vating dignity of his nature, until, by becoming a parent, he 
feels himself to be a creator as well as a creature. The 
childless man passes through life like an arrow through the 
air, leaving nothing behind that may mark his flight. A 
tombstone, stating that they were born and died, is the sole 
brief evidence of existence which the mass of bachelors can 
transmit to the succeeding generation. But the father feels 
that he belongs to the future, as well as the present ; he has, 
perhaps, become a permanent part and parcel of this majes- 
tical world " till the great globe dissolve ;" for his descendants 
may not impossibly make discoveries, or effect reforms, that 
shall influence the destiny of the whole human race, and 
thus immortalise their name. These may be baseless dreams, 
fond and doting reveries, but, like all the aspirations con- 
nected with our offspring, they serve to soothe and meliorate 
the heart, while they send the delighted spirit into the future, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 269 

wreathed with laurels, and mounted upon a triumphal car of 
glorious hopes. 

PARTRIDGE— a bird to which the Squirearchy are so 
strangely attached, that they will shoot, trap, and transport 
their fellow-creatures for the pleasure of destroying it them- 
selves. 

PARTY-SPIRIT— a species of mental vitriol, which we 
bottle up in our bosoms, that we may squirt it against others ; 
but which, in the meantime, irritates, corrodes, and poisons 
our own hearts. Personality and invective are not only proofs 
of a bad argument, but of a bad arguer; for politeness is 
perfectly compatible with wit and logic, while it enhances the 
triumph of both. By a union of courtesy and talent, an 
adversary may be made to grace his own defeat, as the san- 
dal tree perfumes the hatchet that cuts it down. Caesar's 
soldiers fought none the worse for being scented with un- 
guents, nor will any combatant be weakened by moral 
suavity. The bitterness of political pamphlets, and news- 
paper writing, so far from acting as a tonic, debilitates and 
dishonours them. A furious pamphleteer, on being re- 
proached with his unsparing acrimony, exclaimed, " Burke, 
and Curran, and Grattan, have written thus, as well as I." — 
" Ay," said his friend, " but have you written thus as well as 
they?" Political writers and orators must not mistake the 
rage, the mouthing, and the contortions of the Sybil for her 
inspiration. 

PASSIONS.— Were it not for the salutary agitation of the 
passions, the waters of life would become dull, stagnant, and 
as unfit for all vital purposes as those of the Dead Sea. It 
should be equally our object to guard against those tempests 
and overflowings which may entail mischief, either upon our- 



2 7 o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

selves or others ; and to avoid that drowsy calm, of which 
the sluggishness and inertia are inevitably hostile to the 
health and spirits. In the voyage of life, we should imitate 
the ancient mariners, who, without losing sight of the earth, 
trusted to the heavenly signs for their guidance. Happy the 
man, the tide of whose passions, like that of the great ocean, 
is regulated by a light from above ! 

St. Evremond compares the passions to runaway horses, 
which you must tame by letting them have their run; a 
perilous experiment, in which the rider may break his neck. 
Much better to restrain and conquer them before they get 
head; for if they do not obey, they will be sure to command, 
you. 

PASSIVE RESISTANCE— succeeding to that doctrine 
of passive obedience, which was once so strenuously incul- 
cated, promises to be not less efficient as a public weapon, 
than the helplessness of woman is often found to be in private 
life. This formidable, though negative power, may be com- 
pared to a snowball, — the more you push against it, the 
greater it becomes ; it continues giving way before you, until 
it finally comes to a stand still, conquers your strength, and 
defies your utmost efforts to move it. The Quakers were the 
first to discover this important secret ; — the Catholic tithe- 
payers of Ireland are now acting upon it ; — the English dis- 
senters are betaking themselves to it in the question of 
Church-rates ; — and it threatens to be the common resort of 
the whole people, wherever there is a grievance to be re- 
dressed, for which they are compelled to take the remedy 
into their own hands. 

PATRIOTISM— too often the hatred of other countries 
disguised as the love of our own; a fanaticism injurious to the 
character, and fatal to the repose of mankind. In the sub* 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 27* 

jects of small states, it is more especially odious, for they 
must hate nearly the whole of their fellow-creatures. Were 
the world under the domination of one monarch, patriotism 
would be a virtue. Let us view it as under the government 
of one celestial king; let us consider the children of our 
common Father, whatever be their creed or country, as our 
brethren, and the narrow feeling of patriotism will soon 
expand into the nobler and more exalted principle of an all- 
embracing humanism. Most delightful is it to contemplate 
the friendly intercourse now in active operation between the 
people of different countries, and more especially between 
those of France and England. There is rapidly springing 
up a holy alliance of nations, not of kings, and a European 
public opinion, from which the philanthropist may confidently 
anticipate the controlling of governments, the diminished 
frequency of wars, the improvement of the human race, and 
the completion of what a benevolent Providence has designed 
for the destiny of man. 

Public opinion, when it has once ascertained its own 
power, will direct, while it seems to obey; as a vessel, while 
it appears to be governed by the elements, is, in fact, com- 
pelling them to conduct her into the desired port. 

PEN — the silent mouthpiece of the mind, which gives 
ubiquity and permanence to the evanescent thought of a 
moment. 

PERSECUTION— disobeying the most solemn injunc- 
tions of Christianity, under the sham plea of upholding it, 
How admirable the humility of the spiritual persecutor, when 
he kindly condescends to patronise the Deity, to assist 
Omniscience with his counsels, and lend a helping hand to 
Omnipotence ! In such an attempt, the failure is generally 
as signal as the folly, the cruelty, and the impiety; for 



272 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

martyrs, like certain plants, spring up more stubbornly, the 
more you endeavour to crush and trample them down. The 
rebound is always proportioned to the percussion, the recoil 
to the discharge. To conquer fanaticism, you must tolerate 
it : the shuttlecock of religious difference soon falls to the 
ground, when there are no battledores to beat it backwards 
and forwards. 

Power should never be given to any class, as religionists ; 
for morality, and even humanity, are but sorry securities 
against the promptings of that heartless monster, bigotry. 
Hence the danger of what is called an established religion, 
or, in other words, of a religion wielding the sword of the 
civil magistrate — the source of persecution in all creeds, and 
all ages. " It was the State religion of Rome that persecuted 
the first Christians." — "Who was it that crucified the Saviour 
of the world for attempting to reform the religion of his 
country ? The Jewish priesthood. — Who was it that drowned 
the altars of their idols with the blood of Christians, for 
attempting to abolish Paganism ? The Pagan priesthood.— 
Who was it that persecuted to flames and death those who, 
in the time of Wickliffe and his followers, laboured to reform 
the errors of Popery ? The Popish priesthood. — Who was it, 
and who is it, that both in England and in Ireland, since the 
Reformation — but I check my hand, being unwilling to reflect 
upon the dead, or to exasperate the living."* 

" It was the State religion in this country that persecuted 
the Protestants; and since Protestantism has been estab- 
lished, it is the State religion which has persecuted Protes- 
tant dissenters. Is this the fault principally of the faith of 
these Churches, or of their alliance with the State ? No man 
can be in doubt for an answer."f 

The clergy, indeed, are apt to tell us, that they require no 

* Miscellaneous Tracts, by the Bishop of Llandaff, vol. ii. 
f Dymond's " Church and the Clergy." 






OR, HEADS AND TALES. 2-3 

further favour for their doctrines and discipline, than a fair 
and impartial inquiry ; and this is perfectly true, so long as 
they are satisfied with the results of the inquiry; but should 
the contrary be the case, the luckless investigator is liable to 
be refuted by the Canon Law, and the irresistible arguments 
of fine, pillory, and imprisonment. This is freedom of inquiry 
with a vengeance ! 

PESSIMISTS — moral squinters, who, being incapable of 
a straightforward view, " imagine that penetration is evinced 
by universal suspicion and mistrust ; who hope, perhaps, to 
exalt themselves by degrading others ; who discredit every 
thing that is noble, believe all that is base; who would per- 
suade their hearers, that the pure wholesome temple of moral 
beauty and virtue, is a lazar-house of noisome corruption and 
festering abomination. A more false and pestilent treason 
against human nature, a more impious profanation of the 
divinity of goodness that is within us, a more self-condemn- 
ing calumny upon the world, it is not easy to conceive ; and 
yet, upon this paltry, mischievous basis, have weak-headed 
and bad-hearted men, in all ages, not only contrived to 
obtain a reputation for shrewdness and sagacity, but some- 
times have been enabled to distress, with painful misgivings, 
those nobler spirits, who would wish to sympathise with 
fellow-creatures, in the fulness of love and charity, and to 
believe themselves surrounded with congenial hearts and 
kindred souls." 

PHILANTHROPY— was not ill-defined by Cicero, when 
he says, alluding to the purposes of man's creation — " Ad 
tuendos conservandosque homines ■, hominem natum esse. 
Homines hominum causd sunt generati, ut ifisi inter se alii 
aliis prodesse possint. Hominem, natures obedientem, 
homini nocere non posse." 

T 



274 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

Why was man made with wide-spreading arms, except, as 
Dryden beautifully supposes — 

" To satisfy a wide embrace ?" 

The only way we can evince our gratitude to our great 
Creator and Benefactor, for all that he has given us, is to be 
as useful as we can to his creatures, and " to love our neigh- 
bour as ourselves. ;; 

" I fear," said a country curate to his flock — " when I ex- 
plained to you in my last charity sermon, that Philanthropy 
was the love of our species, you must have understood me 
to say specie, which may account for the smallness of the 
collection. You will prove, I hope, by your present con- 
tributions, that you are no longer labouring under the same 
mistake." 

PHYSICIANS — always cherish a sneaking kindness for 
cooks, as more certain and regular purveyors of patients 
than plague and pestilence; and there is this advantage 
in their advice, that no two of them agree, so that the taste 
of an invalid may always be accommodated. " Are you 
out of sorts," says Montaigne, "that your physician has 
denied ycu the enjoyment of wine, and of your favourite 
dishes? — Be not uneasy; apply to me, and I engage to 
find you one of equal credit, who shall put you under 
a regimen perfectly opposite to that settled by your own 
adviser." 

Blunt, and even rude, as he sometimes was, our country- 
man, Abernethy, would not have hazarded so unfeeling a 
speech as is recorded of Andrea Baccio, the celebrated 
Florentine physician. Being called on to attend a woman 
of quality, he felt her pulse, and asked her how old she 
was. — She told him, " about four score." — " And how 
long would you live ? " demanded the surly practitioner, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 275 

quitting her hand, and making the best of his way out of 
the house. 

Physicians may well smile at the many jokes and malicious 
pleasantries of which they are the butt, for they must share 
the consciousness of their patients, that there is no greater 
benefactor to his species than the successful practitioner. 
No wonder that such men received divine honours in the 
olden times, since they seem to approximate to the attributes 
of the gods — " ' Neque enim ulla, alia re homines propius ad 
Deos accedunt, quam salutem hominibus dando." 

PHYSIOGNOMY— reading the hand-writing of nature 
upon the human countenance. If a man's face, as it is pre- 
tended, be like that of a watch, which reveals without, what 
it conceals within, silence itself is no security for our thoughts, 
for a dial tells the hour as well as a clock. If, in addition to 
this self-betrayal, the suggestion of Momus could be realized, 
and a window be placed in our bosoms, so that "he who runs 
may read," the best of us might well change colour, for many 
a heart would look black when it was read. 

PIC-NIC — the most unpleasant of all parties of pleasure. 

If sick of home and luxuries, 

You want a new sensation, 
And sigh for the unwonted ease 

Of ^accommodation, — 
If you would taste, as amateur, 

And vagabond beginner, 
The painful pleasures of the poor, 

Get up a Pic-nic dinner. 

Presto! 'tis done— away you start, 

All frolic, fun, and laughter, 
The servants and provision cart 

As gaily trotting after. 

T 2 



2 7 6 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

The spot is reach'd, when all exclaim 

With many a joyous antic, 
" How sweet a scene !— I'm glad we came I 

How rural — how romantic ! " 

Pity the night was wet ! — but what 

Care gipsies and carousers ? 
So down upon the swamp you squat 

In porous Nankeen trowsers. — 
Stick to what sticks to you — your seat, 

For thistles round you huddle, 
While nettles threaten legs and feet, 

If shifted from a puddle. 

Half starved with hunger — parch'd with thirst, 

All haste to spread the dishes, 
When lo ! 'tis found, the ale has burst, 

Amid the loaves and fishes. 
Over the pie, a sodden sop, 

The grasshoppers are skipping, 
Each roll's a sponge, each loaf a mop, 

And all the meat is dripping. — 

Bristling with broken glass, you find 

Some cakes among the bottles, 
Which those may eat who do not mind 

Excoriated throttles. 
The biscuits now are wiped and dried, 

When squalling voices utter, 
' ' Look I look ! a toad has got astride 

Our only pat of butter ! " 

Your solids in a liquid state, 

Your cooling liquids heated, 
And every promised joy by fate 

Most fatally defeated ; 
All, save the serving men are sour'd, 

They smirk, the cunning sinners ! 
Having, before they came, devoured 

Most comfortable dinners. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 477 

Still you assume, in very spite, 

A grim and gloomy gladness, 
Pretend to laugh— affect delight — 

And scorn all show of sadness.— 
While thus you smile, but storm within, 

A storm without comes faster, 
And down descends in deaf 'ning din 

A ■ deluge of disaster. 

'Tis sauve qui p tut; — the fruit dessert 

Is fruitlessly deserted, 
And homeward now you all revert, 

Dull, desolate, and dirtied, 
Each gruffly grumbling, as he eyes 

His soaked and sullen brother, 
" If these are Pic-nic pleasantries, 

Preserve me from another ! " 



« PILGRIM'S PROGRESS."— The hero of this popular 
and pious allegory, as has been justly observed by Mr. 
Dunlop, in his " History of Fiction," — " is a mere negative 
character, without one good quality to recommend him. 
There is little or no display of charity, beneficence, or even 
benevolence, during the whole course of his pilgrimage. The 
sentiments' of Christian are narrow and illiberal, and his 
struggles and exertions wholly selfish." 

In proof of the latter part of this imputation, mark with 
what a heartless indifference to everything but himself, 
he abandons his wife and family. — " Now he had not run 
far from his own home, but his wife and children, perceiving 
it, began to cry after him to return, but the man put two 
fingers into his ears, and ran on, crying Life ! Life ! Eternal 
Life ! So he looked not behind him, but fled towards the 
middle of the plain." 

So uniform are the results of fanaticism, even when en- 
gendered by different views of religion, that a precisely 
similar trait is related of the Catholic, St. Francis Xavier. 



a 7 8 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

" It is well ," says Sir Walter Scott, speaking of his general 
character, as given by Dryden, " that our admiration is 
qualified by narrations so shocking to humanity, as the 
account of the Saint passing by the house of his ancestors, 
the abode of his aged mother, on his road to leave Europe 
for ever, and conceiving he did God good service in 
denying himself the melancholy consolation of a last fare- 
well." — Life of Dryden, p. 338, 

PLAGIARISTS— purloiners, who filch the fruit that others 
have gathered, and then throw away the basket. 

PLEASING ALL PARTIES. — This hopeless attempt 
usually ends by pleasing none, for timeservers neither serve 
themselves nor any one else. As the endeavour involves 
a contemptible compromise of principle, it is generally 
despised by the very parties whom we seek to conciliate. 
What opinion can we have of a man who has no opinion 
of his own ? — A neutral, we can understand and respect ; 
but a Janus-faced double-dealer, who affects to belong to 
both sides, will not be tolerated by either. His fear of 
giving offence is the greatest of all offences. Of this, a 
ludicrous instance was afforded at the time of the riots, in 
1780, when every one was obliged to chalk "No Popery" 
upon the wall of his house, in order to protect it from 
violence. — Delpini, the clown, particularly anxious to win 
" golden opinions from all sorts of men," since his benefit 
was close at hand, scrawled upon his house, in large letters 
— " No Religion." 

PLEASURES — see Will-o'-the-wisp. Some, like the 
horizon, recede perpetually as we advance towards them ; 
others, like butterflies, are crushed by being caught. Plea- 
sure unattained, is the hare which we hold in chase, cheered 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 279 

on by the ardour of competition, the exhilarating cry of 
the dogs — the shouts of the hunters^-the echo of the horn — 
the ambition of being in at the death. Pleasure attained, is 
the same hare hanging up in the sportman's larder, worth- 
less, disregarded, despised, dead. 

The keenest pleasures of an unlawful nature are poisoned 
by a lurking self-reproach, ever rising up to hiss at us, like a 
snake amid the flowers — 

" medio de fonte leporum, 

Surgit aliquid amari ;" 

while there is a secret consolation, even in the heaviest 
calamity, if we feel that it has not been incurred by our 
own misconduct. Upon this subject the great and golden 
rule is, so to enjoy present, as that they may not interfere 
with future pleasures. Burns has happily compared sensual 
pleasure to 

" Snow that falls upon a river, 
A moment white, then gone for ever." 



POETRY — the music of thought conveyed to us in the 
music of language: — the art of embalming intellectual 
beauty, a process which threatens to be speedily enrolled, 
together with the Egyptian method of immortalising the body, 
among the sciences which are lost. 

The harmony of the works of nature is the visible poetry 
of the Almighty, emblazoned on the three-leaved book of 
earth, sea, and sky. 

If Hayley could talk, even in his days, of — "the cold 
blank bookseller's rhyme-freezing face," what would he say 
in ours, when we have seen Crabbe, Wordsworth, and 
Coleridge, condemned to an involuntary silence ; Moore, 
the first lyrical writer of the age, " vir nulla non donandus 
laurft" one whose very soul is poetry, driven to the ungenial 



2 8o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

toil of Biography; and Southey, not only necessitated to 
waste his fine poetical talents and kindly feelings in the 
fierce arena of criticism and politics, but absolutely obliged 
to consult the public taste, or rather the total want of it, by 
discontinuing the Laureate odes ? 

Absurd as it was to expect a rational answer from T. H., 
I ventured to ask him how it came that all our best poets 
were obliged to write prose ? — " Because poetry is prose- 
scribed? was his reply. 

POINT, One good. — So various are the estimates formed 
of us by our fellow-creatures, that there never, perhaps, 
existed an individual, however unpraiseworthy, who was 
not acknowledged to have one good point in his character, 
though it by no means follows, that this admission is always 
to be taken as a compliment. A gentleman, travelling on a 
Sunday, was obliged to stop, in order to replace one of his 
horse's shoes. The farrier was at church ; but a villager 
suggested, that if he went on to Jem Harrison's forge, he 
would probably be found at home. This proved to be true, 
when the rustic who had led the horse to the spot exclaimed 
— " Well, I must say that for Jem — for it is the only good 
point about him — he do never go to Church ! " 

POLITENESS — of the person exhibits itself in elegance 
of manners, and a strict adherence to the conventional 
forms and courtesies of polished life. Politeness of the 
heart consists in an habitual benevolence, and an absence 
of selfishness in our intercourse with society of all classes. 
Each of these may exist without the other. 

POOR LAWS* — premiums upon idleness and improvi- 

* How far the author mi<jht have modified this article, had he lived 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 281 

dence — reversing the moralising effect of the prudential 
restraints, and of the domestic affections, as devised for 
the welfare of society by the wisdom of God, through the 
instrumentality of a demoralising system, invented by the 
folly of man. Our poor laws, making the industrious sup- 
port the indolent, the moral the profligate, and the prudent 
the improvident, are not only dissuasions from good, but 
stimulants to evil, by encouraging selfishness, reckless- 
ness, and inconsiderate marriages, and thus perpetuating 
pauperism, misery, and vice. This mischievous system 
tends inevitably to impoverish the rich, without enriching 
the poor; but in the harm thus done to both classes, the 
latter are by far the greatest sufferers, — their industry being 
paralysed, their affections seared, their minds demoralised, 
and their poverty confirmed. 

What cruelty ! exclaims some sanctimonious anti-Mal- 
thusian, to discourage the marriages of the lower orders, 
and what scandalous immorality would be the consequence 
of success in this object ! Why, the prudential restraint 
which prevents improvident matches, is in full operation 
throughout the whole of the middling and upper classes, 
without being felt as an oppression, and without any in- 
crease of immorality. Even if their temporary celibacy were 
to increase one vice of the lower orders, it would diminish 
fifty others, by improving their circumstances, and removing 
the temptations of want and destitution. Pauperism is the 
hot-bed of crime, and good circumstances are the best 
security for good conduct. 

POPULARITY — the brightness of a falling star,— the 
fleeting splendour of a rainbow, — the bubble that is sure 

to witness the recent modification of the Poor Laws, it is impossible to 
say. — Ed. 



282 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

to burst by its very inflation. The politician who, in these 
lunatic times, hopes to adapt himself to all the changes of 
public opinion, should qualify for the task by attempting to 
make a pair of stays for the moon, which assumes a new 
form and figure every night. 

POPULATION. — The proportion between the sexes 
seems to be governed by a general and permanent law, 
which, doubtless, keeps them at the standard best adapted 
for human happiness. Wherever accurate registers are kept, 
we know that the number of males born exceeds the females ; 
the ratio being between fifteen to fourteen, and twenty-five 
to twenty-four. In England and Wales, from i8ioto 1820, 
they were as sixteen to fifteen, very nearly the same as in 
France. And yet, partly owing to the greater longevity of 
females, — to the loss of male life in the military and naval 
service, or in unwholesome manufactures, — to emigration, 
and other circumstances, it is found, throughout Europe, 
that the females exceed the males. In this uniformity of 
the laws of population, we behold a new and gratifying proof 
of a superintending Providence — of a common Father, who, 
making no distinctions of clime or religion, of rank or 
station, subjects the whole family of mankind to the same 
paternal control. 

POSSIBLE. — In order to effect the utmost possible, we 
must be careful not to throw away our strength in straining- 
after the impossible, and the unattainable, least we exemplify 
the fable of the dog and the shadow. " Search not into the 
things above thy strength." 

" Sors tua mortalis ; non est mortale quod optas." 
POSTHUMOUS GLORY— a revenue payable to our 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 283 

ghosts ; an ignis fatuusj an exhalation arising from the 
ashes and corruption of the body; the glow-worm of the 
grave; a Jack-o'-lantern, of which a skeleton is the Jack, 
and the lantern a dark one ; protracted oblivion ; the short 
twilight that survives the setting of the vital sun, and is 
presently quenched in the darkness of night. "Ashes to 
ashes, and dust to dust," may be said of our fame, as well 
as of our frame : one is buried very soon after the other. 
When the rattling earth is cast upon our coffin, it sends 
up a hollow sound, which, after a few faint echoes, dies 
and is buried in oblivious silence. That fleeting noise is 
our posthumous renown. Living glory is the advantage of 
being known to those whom you don't know ; — posthumous 
glory is enjoying a celebrity from which you can derive 
no enjoyment, and enabling every puppy in existence to 
feel his superiority over you by repeating the old dictum, 
that a living dog is better than a dead lion, or by quoting 
from Shakspeare — " I like not such grinning honour as Sir 
Walter hath!" 

POSTS and PLACES.— It was a complaint of D'Alem- 
bert, that men so completely exhausted their industry in 
canvassing for places, as to have none left for the perform- 
ance of their duties. Query — Have public men improved in 
this respect since the days of D'Alembert ? 

POVERTY. — To the generous-minded, it is the greatest 
evil of a narrow fortune that they must sometimes taste the 
humiliation of receiving, and can rarely enjoy the luxury 
of conferring benefits. None can feel for the poor so well 
as the poor, and none, therefore, can so well appreciate the 
painfulness of being unable to relieve the distress with which 
they so keenly sympathise. 

Riches, it was once observed, only keep out the single evil 



284 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

of poverty. True ! was the reply — but how much good do 
they let in ! Whatever may be the talents of a poor man, 
they will not have their fair share of influence ; for few will 
respect the understanding that is of so little advantage to its 
owner, and still fewer is the number of those who will doubt 
the abilities that have made a fool rich. Nevertheless, there 
are many chances in favour of the sufferers under impecu- 
niosity ; for, if Necessity be the mother of Invention, Poverty 
is the father of Industry ; and the child of such parents has 
a much better prospect of achieving honours and distinc- 
tion than the rich man's son. Chief Justice Kenyon once 
said to a wealthy friend, who asked his opinion as to the 
probable success of his son at the Bar — " Let him spend 
his own fortune forthwith ; marry, and spend his wife's, 
and then he may be expected to apply with energy to his 
profession." 

PRACTICE — does not always make perfect. Curran, 
when told by his physician, that he seemed to cough with 
more difficulty, replied — " That is odd enough, for I have 
been practising all night." 

PRAISE — that which costs us nothing, and which we are, 
nevertheless, the most unwilling to bestow upon others, even 
where it is most due, though we sometimes claim it the more 
for ourselves, the less we deserve it ; not reflecting that the 
breath of self-eulogy soils the face of the speaker, even as the 
censer is dimmed by the smoke of its own perfume. 

Which of us would desiderate the expressive silence re- 
commended by Scaliger as the most appropriate compliment 
to Virgil ? — " De Virgilio nunquam loque?idum; nam omnes 
omnium laudes superat." Few people thank you for praising 
the qualities they really possess; to win their hearts, you 
must eulogise those in which they are deficient. As this is 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 285 

the most subtle of all flattery, so is it the most acceptable. 
In general, we have little reason to be grateful to those who 
speak the strict truth of us, and we are the more bound to 
acknowledge the kindness of those who flatter us by agree- 
able falsehoods. Stratonice, the bald wife of Seleucus, gave 
six hundred crowns to a poet, who extolled the beauty and 
profusion of her hair. One thing I would counsel to authors 
— never to make any allusion to themselves. If from sheer 
modesty, they speak disparagingly of their own works, their 
averments are set down for gospel; if they assume the 
smallest modicum of merit, their claim is cited as an instance 
of inordinate vanity. Silence is sapience. 

The best praise which you can bestow on an author, or an 
artist, is to show that you have studied and understand his 
works. When Augustin Caracci pronounced a long discourse 
in honour of the Laocoon, all were astonished that his brother 
Annibal said nothing of that celebrated chef-d'oeuvre. 
Divining their thoughts, the latter took a piece of chalk, 
and drew the group against the wall as accurately as if he 
had it before his eyes ; a silent panegyric, which no rhetoric 
could have surpassed. 

" Our praise of beginners," says Rochefoucauld, " often 
proceeds from our envy of those who have already suc- 
ceeded." This is a secret well known to critics ; but they 
do not seem to be aware that sincerely to praise merit is, in 
some degree, to share it. 

PRAYER-BOOKS— answer many useful purposes, besides 
that of being carefully laid on the drawing-room table every 
Sunday morning. Were it not for these little manuals, 
people would have nothing to hold before their faces at 
church, when they are gaping, or ogling their neighbours, or 
quizzing a new bonnet in the next pew. But the most appro- 
priate, praiseworthy, and important object to which a prayer- 



286 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

book can be applied, is its enabling you to afford incontestable 
proof that you keep a man-servant, when you enter the house 
of God to forswear the pomps and vanities of this wicked 
world. I have known ladies of all ages who could carry, for 
any distance, a pet poodle, weighing twenty-nine pounds and 
twelve ounces ; but I have seldom known a female of any 
age who, having a man-servant, could carry a prayer-book, 
weighing four ounces and four pennyweights, from the 
church-door to the door of her pew. As there is a great 
inconvenience in crowding the aisles with lacqueys, going 
and returning, both at the commencement and the end of 
service, I would propose that all ladies should either carry 
their own prayer-books, or lock them up in their pews ; and 
that those who are entitled to that pious distinction, should 
have a large label upon their backs, inscribed, " I keep a 
footman." By this measure we should avoid the incon- 
venience of which I have complained, while the fair label- 
bearers, carrying their footman at their back, instead of 
having him always in their head, would still obtain due 
credit for that Christian humility and devout sense of the 
proper objects of church-going, which are so clearly evi- 
denced by the display of a handsome man, in a handsome 
blue livery, with crested buttons, crimson collar and facings, 
tufted shoulder knots, long worsted tags, and silken tassels ! 

PRECEDENT, Authority of— substituting a decision or 
an opinion for a principle, or a truth, and thus running the 
risk of perpetuating error, by making another man's folly the 
guide of your wisdom. Had the precedent of one age always 
been a rule for the next, the world would have been station- 
ary, and we should never have emerged from barbarism. If 
this slavish adherence to former decisions gave us a fixed 
and immutable system, there would be some compensation 
for its being a wrong one ; but the glorious uncertainty of the 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 287 

law, based as it is upon precedent, has passed into a by-word. 
A weathercock, even when it has become so rusty that it will 
not traverse, may occasionally point in the right direction ; 
but one that hangs so loosely as to be perpetually shuffling 
and veering, without reference to the quarter whence the 
wind blows, can only serve to puzzle and mislead. 

PRECEPT — without example, is like a waterman, who 
looks one way and rows another. What avails the know- 
ledge of good and evil, if we do what we ought to avoid, and 
avoid what we ought to do ? A direction post may point out 
the right road, without being obliged to follow it; but human 
finger posts, especially teachers and preachers, have not the 
same privilege. When a man's life gives the lie to his tongue, 
we naturally believe the former, rather than the latter. Phari- 
saical professions are but as a tinkling cymbal; we cannot 
listen patiently to the voice of the hypocrite, charm he never 
so wisely; but there is a silent eloquence in the morality of a 
whole life, that is irresistible. Precept and example, like the 
blades of a pair of scissors, are admirably adapted to their 
end, when conjoined: separated they lose the greater portion 
of their utility. Tertullian says, that even our writings blush 
when our actions do not correspond with them. Ought not 
this inconsistency rather to produce a contrary effect, and to 
prevent our writings from being read ? 

He who teaches what he does not perform, may be com- 
pared to a sun-dial on the front of a house, which instructs 
the passenger, but not the tenant. " Eqnide?n beatos fiuto" 
says Pliny, " quibus Deorum mwiere datum est, aut facere 
scribenda, aut legenda scriberej beatissimos vere quibus 
utrinque? " Happy are they to whom the gods have given 
the power, either to perform actions worthy to be recorded, 
or to write things worthy to be read : happier still are they 
in whom both powers are united." 



288 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

PRECOCIOUS CHILDREN— whose early intellectual 
development is often the harbinger of a premature decay, 
may be compared to Pliny's Amygdala, or almond tree, of 
which the early buds and immature fruits were cut off by the 
frosts of spring. 

PRESS — the steam engine of moral power, which, directed 
by the spirit of the age, will eventually crush imposture, 
superstition, and tyranny. The liberty of the press is the 
true measure of all other liberty, for all freedom without this 
must be merely nominal. To stifle the nascent thought, is a 
moral infanticide, a treason against human nature. What 
can a man call his own, if his thought does not belong to 
him? King Hezekias is the first recorded enemy to the 
liberty of the press : he suppressed a book which treated of 
the virtues of plants, for fear it should be abused, and en- 
gender maladies ; a shrewd and notable reason, well worthy 
of a modern Attorney-general. 

PRIDE.—" My brethren," said Swift in a sermon, " there 
are three sorts of pride — of birth, of riches, and of talents. 
I shall not now speak of the latter, none of you being liable 
to that abominable vice." 

If we add to our pride, what we cut off from less favourite 
faults, we are merely taking our errors out of one pocket to 
put them into another. 

PRIESTHOOD.— When the word of God, chained up in 
the Latin tongue, was a sealed book to the public ; when the 
mere ability to read entitled a man to the ftrivilegium cleri- 
calej when the nation, steeped in ignorance, and conse- 
quently in superstition, looked up to the clergy as the means 
of salvation, and the sole depository of that learning and 
knowledge which are always worldly power; we can under- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 2 3 9 

stand why their authority should be almost unlimited, and 
little marvel, that, like all despotism, it should be grossly 
abused. The laws, of which the clergy then had the chief 
enactment, having exempted them from almost every per- 
sonal duty, they attempted a total exemption from almost 
every secular tie. " But, as the overflowing of waters," says 
Sir Edward Coke, "doth many times make the river to lose 
its proper channel, so, in times past, ecclesiastical persons, 
seeking to extend their liberties beyond their due bounds, 
lost those which of right belonged to them." 

Of these perversions and usurpations the most grievous 
were abolished by the Reformation : which, however, effec- 
tually provided for the corruption, and final unpopularity of 
the Church, when it bequeathed to it a spiritual nobility, 
tithes, pluralities, wealthy sinecures, and non-residence. In 
morals, piety, and learning, the clergy, as a body, are not 
only unexceptionable, but most exemplary ; and yet, in the 
most religious country in the world, they are confessedly not 
so popular as they ought to be. Why ? Because, instead of 
being a-head of the people, as has always hitherto been the 
case, they are only on a par with them in general informa- 
tion, and occasionally behind them in the desire of improve- 
ment, in liberality, and in the spirit of the age, the only 
articles whereof some of their body do not seem anxious to 
take tithe. This censure must not be passed without except- 
ing many distinguished individuals, to whose enlightened 
views the writer is proud to do justice. A substitution for 
the obnoxious tithes, and a reform of the Church abuses, may 
restore to the clergy all their lost influence and popularity, 
nor yet encroach upon that decent and sufficing provision, 
beneath which, or above which, no minister can long pre- 
serve the respect of his flock. Upon the aggregate property 
of the Church none seek to make inroad, but all must feel 
that it would be much better secured by a more equal 



290 



THE TIN TRUMPET 



distribution, and by a timely reform, which, in order to 
ensure its friendly spirit, ought to emanate from the Church 
itself. 

PRIMOGENITURE— disinheriting a whole unoffending 
family, in order that the accident of an accident, viz., the 
eldest son of an eldest son, very possibly the last in merit, 
though the first in birth,, may be endowed with the 
patrimony of his brothers and sisters, each of whom may 
exclaim — ■ 

' ' Sum pauper, non culpa mea, sed cu'pa parentum, 
Qui me fratre meo non genuere prius." 

Equally opposed to nature, reason, morality, and sound 
policy, this barbarous remnant of the doctrine which main- 
tains the many to be made for the few, not the few for the 
many, has been a pregnant source of private as well as 
public corruption. The father whose estate is entailed has 
lost much of his moral influence over his children, being 
equally unable to reward the duty and affection of the 
juniors, or to control and punish the excesses of his heir., 
whose independence too often occasions him to be prema- 
turely extravagant, profligate, and unfilial. Numerous and 
notorious are the family feuds thus engendered, for Primo- 
geniture destroys all the ties of consanguinity. An observant 
foreigner has noticed, that the English aristocracy, generally 
alienated from their eldest son, doat, nevertheless, on their 
eldest grandson, because they see in him an avenger of their 
wrongs, and the future tormenter of him by whom they 
themselves have been tormented. What a revolting picture 
of perverted affection ! 

Nor are the social and fraternal feelings less distorted. 
With what a calm heartlessness will an elder son, rolling in 
wealth and luxury, see his brothers struggling with poverty, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 291 

nor feel himself bound to offer them the least assistance ! " I 
must live," sorrowfully exclaimed a poor cadet, when solicit- 
ing a small loan from the heir of a rich family. " Je rten 
vols pas la ne'cessite" was the brother's reply ; and his un- 
feeling rejection of the suit was abundantly justified by that 
law of Primogeniture, which has completely superseded the 
law of nature. So much for its corrupting effects upon 
private life. 

That it is not less demoralising in a public point of view, 
is established by the fact, that our aristocracy, for ages past, 
have had no other means of providing for their younger sons, 
than by making them state-paupers, and procuring them 
pensions, sinecures, civil or military appointments, and places 
in the colonies or the Church ; so that they have a deep 
interest in upholding abuses of every description, and in 
monopolising for their own order, and by an undue influence, 
those employments which ought to be open to merit, and to 
candidates of every class. What can we then expect from an 
unreformed House of Lords ? Primogeniture, as a consti- 
tuent element of nobility, begins in injustice, continues by 
acquiescence, and is perpetuated by habit, until at last, the 
hoary abuse shakes the grey hairs of antiquity at us, and 
gives itself out for the wisdom of ages. 

" It is a fact highly honourable to the character of the 
French nation, that when De Villele attempted to revive the 
- droit d'ainesse,' there were amongst the numerous petitioners 
against the measure, the names of many who would have 
benefited by the change, but who paid less regard to their 
own interest than to the suggestions of natural affection. 
They were too noble-minded to barter the rights and honour 
of their brothers for wealth or worldly distinction. The same 
feelings of iustice and generosity have distinguished the 
citizens of Virginia, where, when the paternal estate has been 
bequeathed entire to the eldest son, he has frequently been 

u 2 



292 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

known to divide it equally among his brothers and sisters. 
In both these cases an opposite conduct would have been 
censured by public opinion, and would have incurred a 
degree of odium which is to be found in those countries only 
where the natural instinct of justice is not perverted by 
luxury, and the sympathies and charities of life are pure and 
unsullied. How different is the picture which the mother 
country would present to the eye of the indignant North 
American ! The portions of our younger nobility, like the 
wages of our peasantry, are made out of a poor-rate ; pride 
and poverty are encouraged by the same policy, and the 
gentleman and the labourer are equally paupers." — English- 
man's Magazine. 

It has been urged, that the abolition of primogeniture and 
entail would rapidly pauperise the land, by its continual sub- 
division into small allotments. But it is already pauperised, 
where it is not fattened into disease; for the few are as much 
too rich, as the many are too poor; and if that be the best 
system which confers the greatest happiness upon the 
greatest number, a more equal distribution of the general 
wealth would surely be an improvement for all. The fine 
arts might suffer, for want of wealthy patrons ; but the useful 
arts would receive an impulse from the greater diffusion of 
competency ; and what would be gained in the latter direc- 
tion might well atone for the loss in the former. A nation 
may pay too dear for the arts. It is, doubtless, fine to talk 
of an Augustan era, and Augustus himself was said to boast 
that he had found Rome of brick, and left it of marble ; but 
if he had added, as in truth he might, that he had found 
Rome free, and had left it enslaved, what patriot would not 
have felt the city dishonoured by its architectural honours ? 

The constant reports, in our papers, of law-suits between 
relations, mostly originating in the unjust system of Primo- 
geniture, reminds one of Malherbe, when he was reproached 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 293 

for being always at law with his family. — " With whom, 
then," he asked, " would you have me be at variance? The 
Turks and Muscovites will not quarrel with me." 

It was well said by one whose elder brother, a dissolute 
and unhappy man, had been vaunting the extent of the 
family estate — " I should envy you for what you have, did 
I not pity you for what you are." The same, when once 
walking with his senior, suddenly seized his arms, hurried 
him on, and exclaimed, with a look of pretended alarm — 
" Away ! away ! your life is in danger — save me from the 
entailed estate !" — at the same time pointing to a board 
set up in an old gravel-pit, with the following inscription — 
" Any one may shoot rubbish here." — T. H. is made respon- 
sible for the truth of this anecdote, though it may possibly 
be as old as the venerable Josephus Molitor. 

PROMULGATION— the most essential part of a law, 
and one, nevertheless, which is the most completely neg- 
lected, hundreds and thousands of poor wretches having 
been punished under enactments of whose existence they 
were utterly ignorant. — " You are rather hard upon the 
canine race, unless they can read," said a foreigner, "for 
I see written up in various places, ' All dogs found in these 
grounds will be shot.' " Our laws are still harder upon the 
human race, for, though the quadrupeds cannot read, we 
presume them to have owners who can, and who will keep 
them out of danger; whereas the biped, even if he be able to 
spell, has no warning set up to put him on his guard, — 
and if he cannot, has no pastor or master who will apprise 
him of his danger. We have declared it illegal to set steel 
traps and spring-guns in unenclosed grounds; and yet we 
thickly plant those murderous weapons, under the name 
of Acts of Parliament, in the highways and thoroughfares, 
keeping the people in the dark, as if on purpose to entrap 



29$ THE TIN TRUMPET} 

the greater number of them. It has been objected, that 
they would not understand the Acts if they were placed 
before their eyes. Then they are not bound to obey them. 
Reason, justice, and humanity proclaim, that no enactment, 
especially a penal one, can be obligatory it it be utterly 
unintelligible. The barbarous jargon in which they are now 
written, should make way for brevity and plain English. 
It might be well if a summary or digest of every law 
affecting the people were printed for circulation, and affixed 
to every church door. It might be better still, if every 
clergyman were obliged to recapitulate and comment upon 
it from the pulpit. We are not always sure that, by ex- 
pounding the laws of God, the preacher can show us the 
way to heaven ; but by explaining the laws of man, there is 
little doubt that he might prove a very valuable guide to the 
poor in their earthly pilgrimage. 

PROPHECIES, The — were never meant as a Moore's 
Almanac, or as riddles for every blind CEdipus to guess at ; 
and yet a year rarely passes without some new version of 
the Book of Revelation, ingeniously adapted to the gazettes 
and current events of the period, by the half-crazy enthu- 
siasts who seem to have succeeded to the old dabblers in 
judicial astrology. Vanity and self-love persuade these 
modern seers, not only that the era to which they belong 
— that insignificant and fleeting point of time called the 
present — must be the all-important one shadowed forth by 
the inspired writers, but that they must be the chosen instru- 
ments to establish the connection between the Apocalypse 
and last Saturday's newspaper. This year's expounder regu- 
larly falsifies the last, but, as 

" Fools rush in where angels fear to tread," 

new ones constantly arise, who being, if possible, still more 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 295 

peremptory and still more wrong than their predecessors, 
entangle themselves with the first little horn, and the second 
little horn, and are generally left in a dilemma between 
the two. 

This gipsy-like irreverence should be discountenanced by 
all sober Christians. The Apostle tells us that — " the things 
of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God : " — and it 
cannot be for edification to see the interpreters warring 
with each other, as well as with the sacred volume, and 
thus encouraging the scoffer, while they bewilder the devout 
inquirer. 

PROSELYTISM — self-love, seeking to make converts to 
our own opinion, disguised as the love of God, seeking to 
win votaries to the true faith. If all religions were to be 
engaged in this pursuit, and all have an equal right, the 
crusades would be renewed, and the whole world would soon 
become an arena for theological strife. 

A Frenchwoman, who had married a Lutheran, made an 
offering to her patron Saint, for the purpose of procuring her 
husband's conversion to Catholicism. While she was waiting 
the effect of her prayers and donations, the good man fell 
sick and died, upon which the grateful v/ife exclaimed — " Ah ! 
there is no Saint like the holy St. Catherine. She has 
graciously given me even more than I asked ! " 

A traveller, who had resided some time in Southern 
Africa, being asked whether the missionaries had been 
successful in civilising the natives, replied — " So much so, 
that I have known hundreds of negroes, who thought no 
more of lying, drinking, or swearing, than any European 
whatever." 

PROSPERITY— indurates; adversity intenerates. The 
human heart is like a feather-bed — it must be roughly 



sq6 . THE TIN TRUMPET; 

handled, well shaken, and exposed to a variety of turns, to 
prevent its becoming hard and knotty. Not without good 
reason does our liturgy instruct us to pray for divine pro- 
tection " in the hour of our wealth," for Satan, 

' ' wiser than before, 

Now tempts by making rich, not making poor :" 

and our dangers and trials invariably increase with our 
prosperity. Then comes the withering discovery that opu- 
lence is not happiness, for the shadows that surround us 
are invariably the darkest when the sun of our fortune shines 
the most brightly. Very often, too, we are only the more 
ridiculous, as well as unhappy, for being tossed in Fortune's 
blanket, and elevated above the heads of our fellows, a pro- 
cess whir.h often turns our own. It matters little to be worth 
money, if we are worth nothing else. 

PROVINCIALISM.— There is a provincialism of mind 
as well as of accent — a nationality of counties. Manners 
make the man, and localities tend to make the manners. 
The character of a whole people may be homogeneous, 
though compounded of many opposite ingredients; as spirit 
and water, sugar and acid, are necessary to the integrity of 
punch. 

PRUDENCE — is of relative merit, according to its de- 
gree and the necessity for its exercise. It should no more 
be prominently noticeable in the conduct of a prosperous 
man, than prudery in the demeanour of a virtuous woman. 
When the rainy day comes, for which over-cautious niggards 
have been long providing, Fortune often delights to take 
them by the head and shoulders, and thrust them into the 
middle of the shower. 

When thus limited to self-interest, prudence is inferior 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 297 

to the instinct of animals, which is sometimes generous and 
disinterested. Calculation, the first attribute of Reason, 
should never render us incapable of the first of the virtues — 
a sacrifice of self. The head must not be allowed to pre- 
dominate over the heart. An expansive humanism, which 
is only a more enlarged calculation, would confirm the 
Scripture injunction, and teach us to love our neighbour 
as ourself. 

Over-caution and over-preparation not seldom defeat their 
own object. Washington Irving tells us of a Dutchman, 
who, having to leap a ditch, went back three miles, that he 
might have a good run at it, and found himself so com- 
pletely winded, when he arrived at it again, that he was 
obliged to sit down on the wrong side to recover his breath- 
— Reader pour mieux sauter is only advisable when the 
preparation bears a due proportion to the thing to be 
performed. 

All, however, must admire the prudence and caution of 
the banker's clerk in America, in giving evidence on a 
trial for forgery. " When I do hold the check this way, 
it do look slick like the handwriting of Malachi Hudson; — 
when I do hold it that way, it is not at all like Malachi's 
signature, so that upon the whole I should say it's about 
middling." 

PUBLIC OPINION— is a river which digs its own bed. 
We may occasionally moderate or quicken its course, but it- 
is very difficult to alter it. 

PUFFING — a species of cozenage and trickery much 
resorted to by the vendors of quack medicines, blacking^ 
novels, and other trash, for the purpose of gulling the public 
and cajoling them into a purchase of their wares. The 
abettors of this derogatory practice maintain that, so far as 



298 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

literature is concerned, it is an act of self-defence against 
the abuse of Reviews. — " What ! " they exclaim, " is a bane 
to exist without its antidote? are malevolence, scurrility, 
perversion, and all the captious chicaneries of corrupt hyper- 
criticism, to have undisputed possession of the literary field ? 
are authors, ex necessitate, such nefarious felons as not to 
be allowed benefit of clergy? Nature, where she plants a 
vegetable poison, generally provides an antidote, so in the 
moral world she causes sympathies to spring up by the side 
of antipathies. Extremes, moreover, have an inherent ten- 
dency towards each other ; the pessimist makes the optimist : 
and thus it is that the unfairness, the bitterness, the rancour 
of reviewers have generated those much more excusable fail- 
ings, if such they may be termed, of superlative, fulsome, 
high-flown panegyrics." 

Be it observed, that in all these mutual malpractices, 
acting and re-acting with aggravated effect upon each other, 
the author has no share; he has parted with his copyright, 
has no interest in the conflict, and can find no more plea- 
sure in being made the shuttlecock between the black 
and white battledore, than would a well-dressed gentleman 
in being alternately jostled by a miller and a chimney- 
sweeper. Philautical hyperboles are not less ridiculous and 
offensive than vain, for we may be assured that the more we 
speak of ourselves in superlatives, the more will others speak 
of us in diminutives ; and the less we put ourselves forward, 
the more will the public be disposed to advance us. — " Prce- 
Julgebant Cassius et Brutus eo ipso quod eorum effigies non 
visebantur" says Tacitus. 

It must be confessed that the publisher, when, by constant 
puffing, he spreads and diffuses the leaves of his favourite 
book, and purifies the peccant humours of the critical world, 
has before him the example of nature, who, by a similar 
process, unfolds the vegetable leaves, and disperses the foul- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 299 

ness and ill-humours of the atmosphere. Even should the 
amiable encomiast undesignedly bring grist to his own mill, 
surely he is not more culpable than the miller, who con- 
fessedly lives by puffs, and yet pursues his avocation without 
impeachment : so true is it that one man may steal a horse, 
while another must not look over the hedge ! Both evils will 
work out their own cure, and puffing the most speedily, if 
there be any truth in the dictum, that 

" Praise undeserved is censure in disguise ;" 

or, that 

" A vile encomium doubly ridicules, 

Since nothing blackens like the ink of fools." 

Sheridan, in " The Critic," has described the puff-collusive, 
which is not yet by any means extinct : — 

" If booksellers, now-a-days, do not venture to recom- 
mend their publications upon the ground of their indelicacy? 
they scruple not to attract readers by openly setting forth 
the personality and scandalous nature of the work they are 
puffing, thus pandering to a vice which is the stigma and 
opprobrium of the day, adducing as a merit that which ought 
to condemn the book with every right-thinking and right- 
feeling reader, and perverting public morals by an un- 
blushing substitution of wrong for right. * That 's villanous, 
and shows a most pitiful ambition in him that uses it. Oh, 
reform it altogether V" 

PUN — a verbal equivocation. If the highest legitimate 
wit be only a play upon ideas, why may we not tolerate a 
play upon words, which are the signs of ideas? Such a 
recreation is at least dabbling in the elements of wit, whereas 
a starch and formal gravity is an evidence of nothing but 
dullness. It is much easier to condemn a good pun than 
to make one, and Dr. Johnson evinced his envy rather 



3 oo THE TIN TRUMPET; 

than his contempt, when he associated punsters and pick- 
pockets. — We are seldom angry with that which we really 
despise. 

PUNISHMENTS— being meant for prevention, not re- 
venge, should be so regulated — " ut poena ad pan cos, metus 
adomnes perveniatP — Wise is that maxim which says, " Non 
minus turpe principimulta suppiicia, quam medico multa 
funeraf and yet we have only lately made the discovery in 
England, that hanging is the very worst use that a man can 
be put to. 

Some writers have thought that the state should be not 
less solicitous to recompense good deeds, than to punish 
evil ones ; but, perhaps, it is better not to disturb the 
moralising impression, that virtue is its own best reward. 
The noblest actions, too, would instantly become liable to a 
tainting suspicion of motives, if the virtues were to be 
scheduled, and remunerated according to a fixed tariff. 
Experience has shown us to what infamous purposes the 
rewards for the apprehension of malefactors have been 
perverted by trading informers, and other dealers in blood 
money. 

Disproportionate punishments are attended with five 
evils: — they deter prosecutors from coming forward — they 
draw attention to the crime — awaken pity for the criminal 
— excite hatred of the law — and occasion the magnitude of 
the temptation to offence to be measured by the magnitude 
of the punishment. 

PURGATORY — one of the few inventions of priestcraft 
that almost deserves to be true ; for a medium was wanting 
between the two extremes of perdition and salvation. Infi- 
nite and eternal torment for offences committed in a few 
brief years of existence, appeared so irreconcileable with the 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 301 

divine attributes, that purgatory, as an intermediate and 
terminable state of punishment, was invented at a very early 
period of the Church. Harmless and reconciling in theory, 
it soon became practically perverted by the clergy into a 
device for the extortion of mass-money, under the pretext of 
shortening its duration. Had this abuse been corrected, and 
the supposed benefits of purgatory extended equally to the 
poor and the rich, our Church Reformers would, perhaps, 
have done well to leave this consolatory doctrine as they 
found it. It may not have the clear warranty of Scripture, 
but how much did they leave untouched, which was equally 
unsanctioned by divine authority ! Quevedo, in his Visions, 
tells us, that an old Spanish nobleman once met his coach- 
man in purgatory, when the latter exclaimed — " O master, 
master ! what can ever have brought so good a catholic as 
you into this miserable place?" — " Ah, my worthy Pedro ! I 
am justly punished for spoiling that reprobate son of mine. 
But you, who were ever such a sober, steady, well-conducted 
man, what can have brought you hither ? ;; — " Ah, master, 
master ! " snivelled Pedro, " I am brought here for being the 
father of that reprobate son of yours \" 

PURITANISM — the innocence of the vicious — external 
sanctimony, assumed as a cover for internal laxity. When- 
ever we smell musk or other pungent perfumes, we may 
fairly suspect that the wearer must have some strong 
effluvium to conquer ; and where we observe a Pharisaical 
display of prudery and piety, we shall seldom err in pro- 
nouncing that it is the disguise of some wolf in sheep's 
clothing. A nice man, according to Swift, is a man of nasty 
ideas ; and a pretender to superior purity will often be found 
much dirtier than his neighbours. Some of these Pharisees 
will occasionally betray them^lves by over-acting their 
part. " I never saw such an indelicate gentleman as that at 



3 o2 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

the opposite house ! " exclaimed a young female saint, " he 
must have seen that I did not choose to pull down the blind, 
and yet he has been watching me the whole time I have been 
changing my dress." Two damsels, of the same puritanical 
stamp, encountering Dr. Johnson, shortly after the publica- 
tion of his Dictionary, complimented him on his having 
omitted all the gross and objectionable words. " What, my 
dears ! " said the doctor, " have you been looking out for 
them already ?" 



UAKER.— " If external rites," Archbishop Til- 
lotson affirms, "have ate out the heart of 
religion in the Church of Rome, religion should 
seem to have made the deepest impression on 
the Quakers, who are the most averse from 
external ceremonies and observances, and are therefore 
hated by the formalists of all churches." That no honours 
might be wanting to this truly Christian sect, they have been 
dignified by the abuse of Cobbett, who, in allusion to their 
dress, and their rejection of the ceremony of baptism, terms 
them, in choice Billingsgate, " a set of unbaptized, buttonless 
blackguards ! " 

Many have admired and eulogised the mild creed, the 
universal charity, the fraternal love, the well-directed in- 
dustry, the moral rectitude, the commercial probity, the strict 
veracity, the general amiability, of these religionists, among 
whom are to be found no malefactors, no beggars, no 
infamous members of any sort, and who imagine that 
they best prove themselves to be good Christians, by being 
good subjects, good neighbours, good men. But how indis- 
creet, how dangerous, nay, how immoral, is such eulogy ! 
What! can we forget that they arrogantly presume to be 
pious and virtuous, without paying tithes ; — that they dare 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 303 

to have a church, not only without sacraments, but even 
without a priesthood; — and that they constitute the best 
organised and most harmonious religious society in the 
world, not only without a spiritual aristocracy, but even 
without a head? What profanation, too, that they should 
consider marriage a simple civil contract, should solemnize 
it as such, and yet never offer to the public a single instance 
of adultery or divorce ! What a pestilential example is all 
this, and how injurious to true, primitive, unadulterated 
Christianity, as it is maintained and illustrated in our vene- 
rable Established Church ! ! Let us hear no more of the 
Quakers, unless it be for the purpose of proscribing and 
persecuting them ! 

" QUARRELS — would never last long," says Rochefou- 
cauld, " if the fault were only on one side." The Spanish 
proverb, which tells us to beware of a reconciled friend, in- 
culcates an ungenerous suspicion. In the case of lovers, we 
have the authority of Terence for affirming that — Amantium 
ira amoris redintegratio est; — and many are the instances 
among friends, where a momentary rupture has only served 
to consolidate the subsequent attachment, as the broken 
bone, that is well set, usually becomes stronger than it was 
before. 

QUIBBLE— QUIRK— QUIDDET— see Law Proceed- 
ings. " True ! " cried a lady, when reproached with the 
inconsistent marriage she had made, " I have often said I 
never would marry a parson, or a Scotchman, or a Presby- 
terian ; but I never said I would not marry a Scotch 
Presbyterian parson." 

Roger Kemble's wife had been forbidden to marry an 
actor, and her father was inexorable at her disobedience ; 
but, after having seen her husband on the stage, he relented, 



3o 4 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

and forgave her, with the observation of — " Well, well, I see 
you have not disobeyed me after all ; for the man is not an 
actor, and never will be an actor." 

QUID PRO QUO.— Every one has heard the reply of 
Montague Matthew, when he was spoken to for Matthew 
Montague, — that there is a great difference between a 
chestnut horse and a horse chestnut ; but this seems to have 
been forgotten, nevertheless, by an unlucky wight, who, 
being engaged to dine at the Green Man at Dulwich, desired 
to be driven to the Dull Man, at Greenwich, and lost his 
dinner by a quid pro quo. 

T. H. observed of the mate of a Whitby merchant ship, 
who could do nothing without his quid, that he had classical 
authority for " Nil actum rejmtans dum quid sufteresset 
agendum" 



AILLERY — has been compared to a light which 
dazzles, but does not burn : this, however, de- 
pends on the skill with which it is managed ; 
for many a man, without extracting its bril- 
liance, may burn his fingers in playing with this 
dangerous pyrotechnic. Pleasant enough to make game of 
your friends, by shooting your wit at them, but if your 
merry bantering degenerates into coarse and offensive per- 
sonality, nobody will pity you, should you chance to be 
knocked down by the recoil of your own weapon. He who 
gives pain, however little, must not complain should it be 
retorted with a disproportionate severity; for retaliation 
always adds interest in paying off old scores, and sometimes 
a very usurious one. Wags should recollect, that the amuse- 
ment of fencing with one's friends is very different from the 
anatomical process of cutting them up. 




OR, HEADS AND TALES. 505 

A coxcomb, not very remarkable for the acuteness of his 
feelings or his wit, wishing to banter a testy old gentleman, 
who had lately garnished his mouth with a complete set of 
false teeth, flippantly inquired, — " Well, my good Sir ! I 
have often heard you complain of your masticators — pray, 
when do you expect to be again troubled with the tooth- 
ache ?" — " When you have an affection of the heart, or a 
brain fever," was the reply. Not less ready and biting was 
the retort of the long-eared Irishman, who, being banteringly 
asked — " Paddy, my jewel ! why don't you get your ears 
cropped ? They are too large for a man ! " replied — " And. 
yours are too small for an ass." 

A well-known scapegrace, wishing to rally a friend who 
had a morbid horror of death, asked him, as they were 
passing a country church during the performance of a 
funeral, whether the tolling bell did not put him in mind of 
his latter end. — " No; but the rope does of yours," was the 
caustic reply. 

REASON — the proud prerogative which confers on man 
the exclusive privilege of acting and conversing irrationally. 
No man is opposed to reason, unless reason is opposed to 
him ; to protest against it, is to confess that you fear it, and 
they who interdict its use, on account of the danger of its 
abuse, may as well build a house without windows, for fear 
the lightning should enter it, or put out their eyes, lest they 
should go astray. To give reasons against the employment 
of reason, is to refute yourself, and to close up your mind tili 
it resembles the bower described by Shakspeare, — 

" Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, 
Forbid the sun to enter." 

. And yet we have theologians, who, proscribing the exercise 
of man's distinguishing and most noble attribute, in the most 



306 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

exalted object to which it can be directed — the contemplation 
of the Deity, and the study of his revealed will, — would con- 
fine human nature, in its highest aspirations, to mere animal 
instincts. Surely this is a triple treason; — first, against the 
majesty of God ; secondly, against the dignity of his human 
image; thirdly, against the writings he inspired. In various 
places do the Scriptures themselves repudiate this degrading 
doctrine. St. Paul desires us to "prove all things;" and 
St. Peter, in his first epistle, expressly says, " Be ready 
always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a rea- 
son of the hope that is in you." — iii. 15. And as we are else- 
where told that the letter killeth, how are we to discover the 
saving spirit, except by the exercise of our intellectual facul- 
ties ? To imagine that the Bible is opposed to reason, is to 
impugn its veracity. Mark the opinion of the pious Locke 
upon the subject: "No mission can be looked on to be 
divine, that delivers anything derogating from the honour of 
the one, only, true, invisible God; or inconsistent with 
natural religion, and the rules of morality; because God, 
having discovered to men the unity and Majesty of his 
eternal Godhead, and the truths of natural religion and 
morality by the light of reason, he cannot be supposed to 
back the contrary by revelation; for that would be to destroy 
the evidence and use of reason, without which, men cannot 
be able to distinguish divine revelation from diabolical im- 
posture."* 

And to the same purport, Bishop Burnet, in his " Exposi- 
tion of the 19th Article," tells us, "that if we observe the 
style and method of the Scriptures, we shall find in them all 
over a constant appeal to men's reason, and to their intel- 
lectual faculties. If the mere dictates of the Church, or of 
infallible men had been the resolution and foundation of 

* Posthumous Works, p. 226. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 307 

faith, there had been no need of such a long thread of rea- 
soning and discourse, as both our Saviour used when on 
earth, and the Apostles used in their writings. We see the 
way of authority is not taken, but explanations are offered, 
proofs and illustrations are brought, to convince the mind ; 
which shows that God, in the clearest manifestation of his 
will, would deal with us as with rational creatures, who are 
not to believe, but on persuasion ; and to use our reason, in 
order to the attaining that persuasion." 

Well would it have been for sound and rational theology, 
had controversial writers always attended to the dictum of 
another learned and pious divine, who affirms — " That 
which has not reason in it, or for it, is man's superstition, 
and not religion of God's making." — Dr. Whichcote's Ser- 
mons, p. 117. 

Prohibiting the exercise of this faculty, in matters of 
opinion, is but an imitation of the Papists, who will not allow 
the senses to be judges in the case of transubstantiation. 
Strange ! that instinct, which is the reason of animals, is to 
be allowed to the feathered, and not to the featherless biped. 
These irrationalists seem to think, that the intellectual facul- 
ties of man are like hemlock and henbane, poisonous to the 
human, But not to the feathered race — Hyosciamus et cicula 
homines fierimunt, avibus alimentum ftrtzbent. Reason, 
however, does us all yeoman's service in the defence of any- 
thing unreasonable. When Paley was asked why he always 
kept his horse three miles off, he replied — " For exercise." — 
" But you never ride." — " That is the reason why I keep 
him at such a distance, for I get all the exercise of the 
walk." 

Still more ingenious was the logic of the schoolboy, whose 
companion thought it absurd that Homer should describe 
Vulcan as being a whole day in falling from the clouds to 
the earth. — " Nay," argued the acute youth, " this shows his 

x 2 



3 c8 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

close adherence to nature ; for you can hardly expect Vulcan 
to fall as fast as another man, when you recollect that he was 
lame." His lameness being the consequence of his fall, it 
must be confessed, that there was unreasonableness enough 
in this reason to satisfy the most zealous irrationalist. 

REFORM — an adaptation of institutions to circumstances 
and knowledge, or a restoration to the original purposes, 
from which they have been perverted, demanded as a right 
by those who are suffering wrongs, and only denied and 
abused by those who have been fattening upon abuse. The 
real Conservatives are the Reformers, the real revolutionists 
are the corruptionists, who, by opposing quiet, will compel 
violent change. When the ultras, and men of this class, 
whose long misrule, and denial of justice, have inflamed the 
public mind, charge the Reformers with having thrown the 
whole country into a blaze, thus accusing the extinguisher of 
being the firebrand, one is reminded of the incendiary, who, 
in order to avoid detection, turned round and collared the 
foreman of the engines, exclaiming — " Ha, fellow ! have I 
caught you ? — This is the rascal who is first and foremost at 
every fire — seize him ! seize him !" There is no Reform 
Bill in Turkey, — no factious opposition, — no free* press, — 
no twopenny trash, — yet, in no country are revolutions so 
frequent. 

Reform, however, to be useful and durable, must be 
gradual and cautious. To those radical gentry of the move- 
ment party, who would be always at work, without calculat- 
ing the mischief or the cost of their vaunted improvements, 
I recommend the consideration of the following anecdote : — 
The celebrated orator Henley advertised, that, in a single lec- 
ture, he would teach any artisan, of ordinary skill, how to make 
six pair of good shoes in one day; — nay, six-and-twenty pair, 
provided there was a sufficiency of materials. The sons of 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 309 

Crispin flocked in crowds, willingly paying a shilling at the 
door, to be initiated in such a lucrative art, when they be- 
held the orator seated at a table, on which were placed six 
pair of new boots. — " Gentlemen ! " he exclaimed, " nothing 
is so simple and easy as the art which I have undertaken to 
teach you. Here are a new pair of boots, — here are a large 
pair of scissors ; — behold ! I cut off the legs of the boots, 
and you have a new pair of shoes, without the smallest 
trouble ; and thus may they be multiplied, ad infinitum, sup- 
posing always that you have a sufficiency of materials." 

REFORMATION.— "The freedom for which our first 
Reformers contended, did not include any freedom of dissent 
from the Athanasian Creed. Grotius and Lardner, and 
Locke and Newton, those great and pious men, who were an 
honour to human nature, and the most illustrious advocates 
of Christianity, would have been adjudged by the first 
Reformers, as well as by the Catholics, by Cranmer and 
Knox, as well as by Bonner and Beaton, to be worthy of 
death in the present world, and of everlasting misery in the 
world to come. The martyrdoms of Servetus in Geneva, 
and of Joan Bocher in England, are notable instances of the 
religious freedom which prevailed in the pure and primitive 
state of the Protestant churches." — Ed. Review, vol. xxvii. 
p. 165. 

The Reformation was not a struggle for religious freedom, 
but for Protestant intolerance, instead of Catholic intoler- 
ance; and the struggle of modern Christians should be for 
emancipation from all intolerance. To every man thus 
engaged, may we not piously ejaculate — " Dii tibi dent quce 
veils / " 

RELIGION, Fashionable — going to Church; making 
devotion a matter of public form and observance between 



3 io THE TIN TRUMPET; 

man and man, instead of a governing principle, or silent 
communion between the heart and its Creator; — converting 
the accessory into the principal, and mistaking the symbol 
and stimulant of pious inspiration for the inspirer ; — 
worshipping the type, instead of the archetype ; — being 
visibly devout, that is to say, when anybody sees you. 

RELIGION, General — an accidental inheritance, for 
which, whether it be good or bad, we deserve neither praise 
nor censure, provided that we are sincere and virtuous. 

Let us not, however, be mistaken. Far be it from us to 
assert, that men should be indifferent to the choice of reli- 
gion, still less that all are alike. We maintain only, that in 
the great majority of instances, little or no choice is allowed ; 
and it is our object to inculcate that humility as to our own 
opinions, and that toleration for others, in which the most 
devout are very apt to be the most deficient. 

" Religion is the mind's complexion, 
Governed by birth, not self-election, 
And the great mass of us adore 
Just as our fathers did before. 
Why should we, then, ourselves exalt 

For what we casually inherit, 
Or view, in others, as a fault, 

What, in ourselves, we deem a merit ? " 

The religion that renders good men gloomy and unhappy, 
can scarcely be a true one. Dr. Blair says, in his Sermon on 
Devotion — " He who does not feel joy in religion, is far from 
the kingdom of heaven." Never can a slavish and cowering 
fear afford a proper basis for the religion of so dignified a 
creature as man, who, in paying honour, must feel that he 
keeps his honour, and is not disunited from himself, even in 
his communion with God. Reverence of ourselves is, in 
fact, the highest of all reverences ; for, in the image of the 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 311 

Deity, we recognise the prototype ; and thus elevated in soul, 
we may humbly strive to imitate the divine virtues, without 
pride or presumption. Religion has been designated as the 
love of the good and the fair, wherever it exists, but chiefly 
when absolute and boundless excellence is contemplated in 
" the first good, first perfect, and first fair." With this feeling 
in their hearts, the virtues could never wander from the right 
faith ; and yet, how many good men seek it amid the dry 
spinosities and tortuous labyrinths of theology ! It was a 
homely saying of Selden, " that men look after religion, as 
the butcher did after his knife, when he had it in his 
mouth." 

Even a sincere religion may be unconsciously mixed up 
with carnal impulses ; for when we cannot bring heaven 
down to earth, we are very apt to take earth up to heaven. 
That ardent adoration of the Virgin Mary, which has pro- 
cured for Catholicism the not inappropriate designation of 
the Marian Religion, was derived probably from the days of 
chivalry, when a sexual feeling impassioned the worship paid 
to the celestial idol, and a devout enthusiasm sanctified the 
homage offered to the earthly one. These spiritual lovers 
would have done well to perpend the fine saying of the 
philosopher, Marcus Antoninus — " Thou wilt never do any- 
thing purely human in a right manner, unless thou knowest 
the relation it bears to things divine ; nor anything divine, 
unless thou knowest all the relations it has to things 
human." 

RELIGION, "Pure and undefiled before God and the 
Father." — We have placed this last, because it is the last 
that enters into the contemplation of the numerous classes 
of Christians, most of whom are too busy in fashioning 
some fantastical religion of their own, to seek for it in the 
Scriptures. The devout and rational reader is referred to 



3 i2 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

the twenty-seventh verse of the first chapter of James. And 
if he still harbour a doubt which be the works of the flesh, 
and which of the Spirit, let him peruse St. Paul's Epistle to 
the Galatians, chap. v. ver. 19 — 26. 

REPARTEE— a smart rejoinder, which, when given im- 
promptu, even though it should be so hard a hit as to merit 
the name of a knock down blow, will still stand excused, 
partly from the ready wit it implies, and partly from its 
always bearing the semblance of self-defence. When time, 
however, has been taken to concoct a retort, and an oppor- 
tunity sought for launching it, not only does it lose all the 
praise of extemporaneous quickness, but it assumes a cha- 
racter of revenge rather than of repartee. 

Those repartees are the best which turn your adversary's 
weapons against himself, as David killed Goliah with his 
own sword. Abernethy, the celebrated surgeon, finding a 
large pile of paving stones opposite to his door, on his re- 
turning home one afternoon in his carriage, swore hastily at 
the paviour, and desired him to remove them. "Where will 
I take them to?" asked the Hibernian. "To hell !" cried 
the choleric surgeon. Paddy leant upon his rammer, and 
then looking up in his face, said with an arch smile, "Hadn't 
I better take them to heaven ? — sure they'd be more out of 
your honour's way." 

REPLY, A ready. — " Carnivorous animals," said a col- 
legian to the Rev. S. S , " are always provided with claws 

and talons to seize their prey; hoofed animals are invariably 
graminivorous. Is it, therefore, consistent with the analogies 
of nature to describe the devil when he goes about seeking 
whom he may devour, as having a cloven foot?" "Yes," 
replied the divine; "for we are assured, on scriptural autho- 
rity, that all flesh is grass." Few better replies are upon 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 313 

record than that of young De Chateaunoeuf, to whom a 
bishop once said, " If you will tell me where God is, I will 
give you an orange?" " If you will tell me where He is 
not, I will give you two," was the child's answer. 

REQUEST, A modest. — When the Duke of Ormonde was 
.nade Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in Queen Anne's reign, 
one of his friends applied to him for some preferment, 
adding, that he was by no means particular, and was willing 
to accept either a Bishopric, or a Regiment of Horse — or to 
be made Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This, 
however, is surpassed by Horace Walpole's anecdote of a 
humane jailor in Oxfordshire, who made the following appli- 
cation to one of his condemned prisoners. " My good friend ! 
I have a little favour to ask of you, which from your obliging 
disposition, I doubt not you will readily grant. You are 
ordered for execution on Friday week. I have a particular 
engagement on that day : if it makes no difference to you, 
would you say next Friday instead ? " 

RESOLUTION.— He who sets out by considering all 
obstacles well — non obstantibus quibuscunque, has half- 
accomplished his purpose, for the difficulty in human affairs 
is more often in the mind of the undertaker, than in the 
nature of the undertaking. With this feeling, and the nil 
actum reputans dum q?ud superesset agendum, — nothing is 
impossible. 

RESPECTABILITY — keeping up appearances, paying 
your bills regularly, walking out now and then with your 
wife, and going occasionally to church. On the trial of 
a murderer, a neighbour deposed that he had always con- 
sidered him a person of the highest respectability, as he had 
kept a gig for several years. This could only have occurred 



3 i4 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

in England, where it is held that a man who is worth money, 
must be a man of worth. 

RETIREMENT from business — a mistake in those who 
have not an occupation to retire to, as well as from. Such 
men are never so well or so happily employed, as when they 
are following the avocation which use has made a second 
nature to them. The retired butcher in the neighbourhood 
of Whitby, must have found idleness hard work, when he 
gave notice to his friends, that he should kill a lamb every 
Thursday, just by way of amusement. 

RETORT-COURTEOUS.—" I said his beard was not 
cut well ; he was in the mind it was ; this is called the retort- 
courteous," says one of the characters in Shakspeare ; but 
this lucus d non lucendo, does not come up to our modern 
idea of the term, which should involve some portion of the 

sharpness or smartness of a repartee. Lord G , who is 

vehemently suspected of being descended from Ferdinand 
Mendez Pinto, since he never opens his mouth without 
fibbing, made some disparaging statement at White's con- 
cerning one of the members. The party implicated, who 
happened to overhear him, came up to his accuser, and said 
emphatically, " My Lord, you have made an assertion," in- 
ferring as a matter of course, that he had uttered a falsehood. 
It is impossible to imagine a more polite, and yet more 
cit tting way of giving the lie. 

Two of the guests at a public dinner having got into an 
altercation, one of them, a blustering vulgarian, vociferated, 
" Sir, you are no gentleman ! " " Sir," said his opponent in 
a calm voice, and with a derisive smile, — " you are no judge." 
Both these bon mots are complete and literal instances of the 
retort-courteous. 

There are retorts uncourteous which can only be justified 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 315 

by the occasion. Talleyrand being pestered with impor- 
tunate questions by a squinting man, concerning his broken 
leg, replied, " It is quite crooked, — as you see." 

H. C , a keen sportsman, provoked by a cockney 

horseman who had ridden over two of his hounds, could not 
forbear swearing at him for his awkwardness. " Sir !" said 
the offender, drawing up both himself and his horse, and 
assuming a very consequential look, " I beg to inform you, 
that I did not come out here to be damned." — " Why then, 
Sir, you may go home, and be damned." 

" Ah ! Dr. Johnson," exclaimed a Scotchman, " what 
would you have said of Buchanan, had he been an English- 
man ? " " Why, Sir," replied Johnson, " I should not have 
said of Buchanan, had he been an Englishman, what I will 
now say of him as a Scotchman, that he was the only mart 
of genius his country ever produced." 

REVENGE — a momentary triumph, of which the satisfac- 
tion dies at once, and is succeeded by remorse; whereas for- 
giveness, which is the noblest of all revenges, entails a 
perpetual pleasure. It was well said by a Roman Emperor, 
that he wished to put an end to all his enemies, by convert- 
ing them into friends. 

REVIEW — a work that overlooks the productions it pro- 
fesses to look over, and judges of books by their authors, not 
of authors by their books. 

REVIEW, Retrospective. — When we cast a Parthian 
glance backwards, and embrace in one far darting retrospect 
our whole existence, divided as it has been into infancy, boy- 
hood, manhood, and old age, each a sort of separate life, 
from the variety of thoughts, feelings, and events that it 
comprises, what a long, long, course of time seems to be con- 



3i6 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

densed into the mental operation of a single moment. The 
period from our own birth to the present hour, appears more 
extensive and eventful than all that has preceded it, even 
from the birth of the world ; so different is the impression 
made by time experienced, and time imagined. In the 
former case, the view is broken by a succession of land- 
marks, each throwing back the distance, and giving to the 
whole the semblance of covering a much larger space than it 
really occupies. In the latter, we are gazing over an object- 
less sea, where the horizon is brought nearer to us for want 
of any standard by which to measure its remoteness. History 
is the shadow of time; life its substance, and they bear the 
same relation to one another, that the dim twilight does to 
the up-risen and visible sun. It is in vain to talk to men of 
throwing their minds into the past, or into the future, you 
may as well bid them leap out of themselves, or beyond their 
shadow. The present is all in all to us. As to the past ages, 
and those which are to come, " De 11011 apparentibus et noil 
existentibus eadem est ratio? 

REVIEWER. — With certain honourable exceptions, a 
reviewer is one who, either having written nothing himself, 
or having failed in his own literary attempts, kindly under- 
takes to decide upon the writing of others. " Let those 
teach others, who themselves excel," was the maxim of 
former times, but in the march of no-intellect, we have 
reversed all this : the dunce wields the magisterial rod, the 
ass sits in the professor's chair, and both are severe, because 
they have found it much more easy and pleasant not to like, 
than to do the like. Hi pr<z cceteris alios liberius carpere 
solent, qui nil proprium ediderunt : — those men are most 
disposed to depreciate others, who have done nothing them- 
selves. Such a critic contemplates a book, as a carpenter 
views a tree, not to weigh the time and contrivance that 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 317 

have been required for its production, not to admire its just 
proportions, or the beauty of its leaves, not to consider what 
pleasure or advantage it may bestow upon others, if left to 
flourish and expand, but merely to calculate how he himself 
may best turn it to account, by undermining, overthrowing, 
and cutting it up. As to the poor author, he is merely used 
as a stalking-horse, behind which the critic levels at the sur- 
rounding game, giving his steed a lash or two as he ends his 
diversion. 

Messieurs the Reviewers ! you are like Othello, not for 
your black looks, nor because of your smothering the inno- 
cent in their own sheets, but because, " your occupation's 
gone." Having found out the motives both of puffers and 
abusers, the public are no more to be deterred from 
purchasing a clever book by the latter, than cajoled into 
buying a stupid one by the former. Parodying the words of 
a well known epigram, we may therefore exclaim : — 

Peace, idiots, —peace ! and both have done, — 

Each kiss his empty brother, 
For Genius scorns a foe like one, 

And dreads a friend like t'other. 

Should any of the fraternity, nevertheless, feel disposed to 
notice this little work, they will please to consider them- 
selves among the honourable exceptions alluded to in the 
commencement of this article. We scorn to truckle to any 
man for the poor honours of " full blown Bufo/ ; but candour, 
is candour ! 

RHETORIC — appealing to the passions instead of the 
reason of your auditors, and claiming that value for the 
workmanship, which ought to be measured by the ore alone. 
An orator is one who can stamp such a value upon counter- 
feit coin as shall make it pass for genuine. Pitt was a 



318 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

rhetorician, or rather declaimer, of this sort, and unfor- 
tunately, we are now paying in sterling coin for his Birming- 
ham flash money. 

RICHES — are seldom really despised, though they may 
be vilipended upon the principle of the fox, who imputed 
sourness to the unattainable grapes. We cannot well attach 
too much value to a competency, or too little to a superfluity, 
but we may and do err in generally defining the former as a 
little more than we already possess. Riches provide an 
antidote to their bane, for though they encourage idleness, 
they will purchase occupation, by change of scene, variety of 
company, pastimes of all sorts, and by that noblest employ- 
ment of any, the exercise of beneficence. Robinson Crusoe 
might despise riches — so may a savage; but no sane and 
civilised man will hold them in contempt. 

" If you live," says Seneca, "according to the dictates of 
nature, you will never be poor ; if according to the notions of 
the world, you will never be rich." 

RIGHTS — and constitutional improvements, are generally 
the results of a struggle, for no wrong makes a voluntary 
surrender; it must be met, fought, and conquered. Liberty 
has seldom been brought into the world without a convul- 
sion. Treason and rebellion are terrible afflictions, but they 
gave us Magna Charta in one age, and in another the Con- 
stitution of 1688. Tyranny and abuse never imitate the 
well-bred dog, who walks quietly down stairs, just as he sees 
preparations are making for kicking him down. They wait 
for the application of the foot, and are kicked twice as far as 
was first intended. Had the boroughmongers conceded re- 
presentation to three or four of the large towns, they would 
not have been all consigned to Schedule A, and smothered 
in their own rottenness. 




OR, HEADS AND TALES. 319 

ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION.— Horace Walpole 
in his Letters mentions a sceptical bon-vivant, who, upon 
being urged to turn Roman Catholic, objected that it was a 
religion enjoining so many fasts, and requiring such implicit 
faith : — " You give us," he observed, " too little to eat, and 
too much to swallow." 



ABBATH, Observance of. — The Americans are 
before us in sound opinions on this subject. In 
the report of the House of Representatives upon 
petitions for the prohibition of the conveyance 
of the mail on the Sabbath, the proposition is 
broadly laid down, that questions of religious obligation lie 
out of the province of legislation. It says, "The principles 
of our government do not recognise in the majority any 
authority over the minority, except in matters which regard 
the conduct of man to his fellow-men." And it defines the 
duty of the representative " to guard the rights of man — not to 
restrict the rights of conscience." We here quote the passage. 
" Religious zeal enlists the strongest prejudices of the 
human mind, and, when misdirected, excites the worst pas- 
sions of our nature under the delusive pretext of doing God 
service. Nothing so infuriates the heart to deeds of rapine 
and blood. Nothing is so incessant in its toils, so persever- 
ing in its determinations, so appalling in its course, or so 
dangerous in its consequences. The equality of rights 
secured by the constitution may bid defiance to mere political 
tyrants, but the robe of sanctity too often glitters to deceive. 
The constitution regards the conscience of the Jew as sacred 
as that of the Christian, and gives no more authority to 
adopt a measure affecting the conscience of a solitary in- 
dividual than that of a whole community. That representa- 
tive who would violate this principle, would lose his delegated 



3 2o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

character, and forfeit the confidence of his constituents. 
If Congress shall declare the first day of the week holy, it 
will not convince the Jew nor the Sabbatarian. It will dis- 
satisfy both, and, consequently, convert neither. Human 
power may extort vain sacrifices, but Deity alone can com- 
mand the affections of the heart. If Congress shall, by the 
authority of the law, sanction the measure recommended, it 
would constitute a legislative decision of a religious contro- 
versy, on which even Christians themselves are at issue. 
However suited such a decision may be to an ecclesiastical 
council, it is incompatible with a republican legislature, which 
is purely for political, and not religious purposes." 

Josephus records, that when God was determined to 
punish his chosen people, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who, 
while they were breaking all his other laws, were scrupulous 
observers of that one which required them to keep holy the 
Sabbath-day, he suffered this hypocritical fastidiousness to 
become their ruin; for Pompey, knowing that they obsti- 
nately refused even to defend themselves on that day, selected 
it for a general assault upon the city, which he took by storm, 
and butchered the inhabitants with as little mercy as he 
found resistance. 

" Pleasant but wrong," was the naivete of the little urchin, 
who, on being brought before a magistrate for playing 
marbles on a Sunday, and sternly asked, — " Do you know, 
sirrah, where those little boys go to, who are wicked enough 
to play marbles on a Sunday?" replied very innocently, — 
" Yes, your vorship, some on 'em goes to the Common, and 
some on 'em goes down by the river side." 

SACRIFICES — killing and burning the harmless to save 
the hurtful, so that the less innocent men become, the more 
they destroy innocent animals. What must have been 
Solomon's opinion of his own sins, and those of his people, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 321 

when, at the consecration of the temple, he offered a sacrifice 
of 22,000 oxen, and 120,000 sheep ! — Ovid was clear-sighted 
enough to see the folly of the heathen system of sacrifice, 
and there is a remarkable conformity between his — 

" Non bove mactato coelestia numina gaudent, 
Sed quae praestanda est, et sine teste, fide" — 

and sundry passages in the New Testament. The priest- 
hood made no very heavy sacrifice when they gave up their 
share of slaughtered animals for tithes, offerings, and other 
pecuniary oblations. 

SANCTUARY — the abuse of impunity, arising originally 
from the abuse of legal severity ; — two evils aggravating, in 
the endeavour to correct, each other. All local privileges, 
the remnants of this ancient compromise, should be abolished. 
We need no other sanctuary than mild laws impartially ad- 
ministered. The king being the first magistrate of the State, 
and, as head of the Church, the guardian of the public 
morals, why should the verge of his court enable debtors to 
defy their just creditors, and to defraud honest tradesmen 
with impunity? Why should Peers, or Members of '.he 
House of Commons, perverting their honour into a source of 
dishonour, violate the laws which themselves have made, j n J 
set themselves above pecuniary responsibility by theii in - 
dom from arrest ? How these privileges have been abused, 
is well known : — why they should be still retained, is by no 
means so manifest. 

SATIRE — a glass in which the beholder sees everybody's 
face but his own. 

SAW — a sort of dumb alderman which gets through a 
great deal by the activity of its teeth. — N.B. A bona-fido 

Y 



3 22 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

alderman is not one of the " wise saws " mentioned by 
Shakspeare, at least in " modern instances." 

SCANDAL — what one half the world takes a pleasure in 
inventing, and the other half in believing. 

SCANDALOUS REPORTS — says Boerhaave, are 
sparks, which, if you do not blow them, will go out of 
themselves. They have, perhaps, been better compared to 
volcanic explosions, of which the lighter portions are dis- 
persed by the winds, while the heavier fall back into the 
mouth whence they were ejected. Our scandalous journals, 
professedly dealing in personality and abuse, have been 
justly termed the opprobrium of the age ; but it is some con- 
solation to know, that few or none of them have disgraced 
the liberal cause. The Conservatives have all the discredit 
of their support; the Reformers, all the honour of their 
enmity. Nuisances as they are, it is, perhaps, wise not to 
molest them, but to let them die of their own stench. Pro- 
secutions for libel avail little against men of straw, and as to 
personal chastisement, the rogues — 

' ' Have all been beaten till they know, 
What wood the cudgel's of by the blow ; 
Or kick'd, until they can tell whether 
A shoe be Spanish or neat leather." 

SCEPTICISM.— "The dogmatist," says Watts, "is sure 
of everything, and the sceptic believes nothing." Both are 
likely to be wrong, but we need not impute wrong motives 
to either. Scepticism may be assumed as an excuse for 
immorality : but Faith also may be assumed as a substitute 
for good works. To say that the doubters are all profligates, 
and the orthodox all hypocrites, would be equally removed 
from truth and liberality. As the worldly temptations all 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 323 

lean towards an acquiescence in received opinions, those 
who profess them should be the last to suspect the motives 
of those who differ from them. Both may be good Christians, 
if they will but think each other to be such. 

SCHISM.—" The restraining of the Word of God, and 
the understanding of men, from that liberty wherein Christ 
and the Apostles left them, is, and hath been, the only 
fountain of all the schisms of the Church, and that which 
makes them immortal ; — the common incendiary of Chris- 
tendom, and that which tears in pieces, not the coat, but 
the bowels and members of Christ, Ridente Turca nee 
dolente Judceo? — (Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants,* 
pt. i. p. 152.) 

SCHOOLS. — It may be questioned whether the separa- 
tion of brothers and sisters from each other, and of both 
from their parents, by sending them to school, be not in- 
jurious to domestic morals, and therefore hurtful to all 
parties. That scholars may derive many advantages from 
attending public or private institutions cannot be denied; 
but their residence should be at home, for such would seem 
to be the intention of nature ; and the constant intercourse 
of parents and children cannot be otherwise than mutually 
beneficial. Men should be fathers of their sons' minds as 
well as bodies. Whatever a youth may lose in the classics, 
by being educated altogether at home, he will gain in 
morality, and the family affections ; while he will pick up, 
by what may be termed insensible education, more general 
knowledge than will be generally possessed by an Etonian 
or Harrow boy of twice his age. Latin and Greek are worth 
having, but not if they cost more than their value. The 
licentious intrigues of heathen gods, and the loose morality 
of Pagan writers, are not the safest reading at that period 

T 2 



3 2 4 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

of life, when evil impressions are the most easily made, and 
the most difficult to eradicate. What is the value of mere 
scholarship ? There ought to be a satisfactory answer to 
this question, for a whole life is often given for its acquire- 
ment. And after all, it is not the knowledge locked up in the 
learned languages; it is not the treasure, but the casket; 
not the nut, but the shell, upon which our classical students 
crack their critical teeth. Bowing down to the shrine, not to 
the divinity, what wonder that we so rarely hear of a learned 
Theban or senior wrangler after he quits his monkish Alma 
Mater. He knows nothing, does nothing, thinks of nothing, 
by which the world may be benefited or enlightened. Mo- 
dern History — the British Constitution — Political Economy 
— General Science, have formed but a small part of his 
education, for they are not noticed by the commentators, 
either upon Lycophron's Cassandra, or the Prometheus 
Vinctus. If only one half of the time lavished upon the 
dead languages had been devoted to philosophical re- 
searches, many a scholar, who is now forgotten, might have 
left behind him an imperishable name. Since the days of 
the illustrious Robert Boyle, few of our patricians have dis- 
tinguished themselves in the higher sciences, or as experi- 
mental philosophers. Boyle, it must be confessed, had an 
advantage — he was never at college; no more were Newton, 
Maclaurin, Wallis, Simson, Napier; nor, in our own more 
immediate times, Sir Humphry Davy, and some of our 
most eminent philosophers. 

SCHOOLMASTER— a dealer in boys and birch;— often 
an academical tyrant, who in his utter ignorance of proper 
management, renders his victims intractable by maltreat- 
ment, and then treats them worse for being intractable. 
Cudgel a little jackass as often as you will, and if he sur- 
vives your cruelty, he will only end with being a great jackass. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 325 

Many of our pedagogues, ever ready to apply the birch and 
the ferula, make no allowance for natural deficiency of 
talent, while they will often terrify a lad of good abilities, 
but weak nerves, into an asinine stupidity. The boys from 
whom they gather their harvest, they seem to consider as so 
much corn, which must be threshed and knocked about the 
ears before any grains of sense can be extracted ; or perhaps 
they liken them to walnut trees, which shower down their 
fruit in return for being well beaten. " The schoolmaster's 
joy is to flog," says Swift ; since when a hundred years have 
elapsed, and it still remains the favourite pastime of our 
pedagogues, who seem to think that boys, as well as sylla- 
bubs, are to be raised by flogging. Ships and fishes may 
make their way when steered by the tail; but when we 
attempt to guide or impel youngsters by a similar process, 
we only retard or turn them out of their right line. Flagel- 
lation, whether of pupils or of soldiers, invariably hardens 
and depraves those whom it seeks to reclaim. In nothing is 
a thorough reform so much wanted as in some of our old- 
fashioned seminaries and teachers. 

An empty-headed youth once boasted that he had been 
to two of the most celebrated schools in England. " Sir," 
said a bystander, " you remind me of the calf that sucked 
two cows." " And what was the consequence ? " " Why, 
sir, he was a very great calf." 

SCIENCE — presents this advantage to its cultivator, that 
he may always hope for progression, whereas the arts, at 
least the ornamental ones, move in a perpetual Round 
Robin, the demand for novelty constantly requiring that 
even the most faultless perfection should be superseded by 
something new, which, of necessity, must be something 
inferior. Were Phidias, Vitruvius, and Raphael to revive,, 
they would find that the world has retrograded in statuary, 



326 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

architecture, and painting; — but could Leibnitz or Newton 
revisit us, they would be amazed at our advances in mathe- 
matics and general science. 

SCOTCHMEN — the inhabitants of every country except 
their own. "No wonder," says Dean Lockier, " that we 
meet with so many clever Scotchmen, for every man of that 
country, who has any sense, leaves it as fast as he can." 

SCOTT, Sir Walter. — Twenty-two bad poets have already 
written epitaphs upon this celebrated author. What a gain 
would it be to the world if Sir Walter were now writing 
theirs ! 

SCULPTURE — the noble art of making an imperishable 
portrait in marble or bronze. There are various ways of 
contemplating these exquisite productions of genius. We 
may be delighted by the beauty of a statue, amazed by the 
triumph of manual dexterity which it exhibits, or we may 
be interested in its associations with the past or the future. 
Or there is a Utilitarian and economical way of consider- 
ing the matter, which was well illustrated by two artisans, 
when Chantry's bronze statue of George the Fourth was first 
exhibited, " What a lot o' penny pieces all this here copper 
would have made," observed one. — "Ay, never mind, Jack!" 
said his companion, pointing at the figure — " it will cost a 
deal less to keep he, than it does to keep the live un ! " 

A contemporary writer has asked, why we attach so little 
value to the wax figures in the perfumers' shops, which 
approach much nearer to nature than the most elaborate 
marble bust ; but he must have forgotten that all works of 
art are estimated in the mingled ratio of their difficulty, 
utility, and permanence, not by their mere similitude to the 
object imitated. — " You would not value the finest head cut 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 327 

out upon a carrot," said Dr. Johnson. Here he was right, 
but he was wrong when he added that the value of statuary 
was solely owing to its difficulty ; for its durability, we might 
almost say its perpetuity, gives it an immeasurable advantage 
over a perishable painting. 

SEA, The — three-fourths of what we might call the earth ; 
the dwelling-place of whales, walruses, porpoises, seals, sailors; 
and other monsters. 

Strange that we often lose our way in travelling by land, 
where we have only to follow our nose, pursue the high 
roads chalked out for us, and read the sign posts set up for 
our guidance; while in traversing the pathless deep, with 
none to ask, and no sea-marks to direct, with nothing to 
peruse but the blank main and the illegible sky, a vessel 
seldom fails, however long and remote may be her voyage, to 
steer direct into her destined harbour. This is the proudest 
victory of science; the greatest triumph of man over the 
elements. The little round compass is the ring that marries 
the most distant nations to each other. Commerce is the 
parent of civilisation; the coasts and ports of a country 
will be always found more polished than the inland parts. 
The sea, therefore, shall ever receive the homage of my 
profound respect, but I cannot admire it. Hunt has justly 
denned it as a great monotonous idea. So little do I like it, 
that I care not to dwell upon it, even with my pen. 

SECRETS. — A secret is like silence — you cannot talk 
about it, and keep it ; it is like money — when once you know 
there is any concealed, it is half discovered. — " My dear 
Murphy ! " said an Irishman to his friend, " why did you 
betray the secret I told you?" — " Is it betraying you call it? 
Sure, when I found I wasn't able to keep it myself, didn't I 
do well to tell it to somebody that could ? " 



328 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

SECTS — different clans of religionists, the very variety 
and number of which should inculcate mutual respect and 
toleration, instead of hatred, and that odious self-worship, 
which many people imagine to be worship of the Creator. — 

Embracing those whom Europe holds, 
The Christian catalogue unfolds 

About a hundred different sects, 
And due indulgence it should teach 
To every follower of each ; 

If for a moment he reflects, 
The chances are against his own, 
Just as one hundred are to one. 



SELF-LOVE — thinking the most highly of the individual 
that least deserves our regard. The self-love of most men 
consists in pleasing themselves, but there are some cases 
where it displays itself in pleasing others. In neither is it 
altogether to be condemned, for our sensibilities may be too 
weak, as well as too strong, and they who feel little for 
themselves, will feel little or not at all for others. Nothing 
can be more different than fortitude and insensibility; the 
one being a noble principle, the other a mere negation ; and 
yet they are often confounded. 

SERMONS— sometimes theological opiates — sometimes 
religious discourses, attended by many who do not attend 
to them, and when published, purchased by many who do 
not read them. It is in vain to expect much eloquence or 
originality in these productions ; — first, because most clergy- 
men have a horror of novelty, lest it should be deemed 
unorthodox : and, secondly, because they want all motive 
for the bold and full development of their talents. Tc 
rise above the regular routine of the pulpit, will neither 
improve their present position, nor add to their chances of 



OR, HEADS AND TALES, 329 

future, preferment ; for the ruling church powers, jealous of 
all enthusiasts, and still more so of original thinkers, had 
much rather promote a weak respectable man, who will sub- 
mit to be led, than a strong-minded zealous divine who might 
aspire to lead — and, perhaps, to innovate ! 

" How comes it," demanded a clergyman of Garrick — 
"that I, in expounding divine doctrines, produce so little 
effect upon my congregation, while you can so easily arouse 
the passions of your auditors by the representation of 
fiction ? " The answer was short and pithy. — " Because I 
recite falsehoods as if they were true, while you deliver 
truths as if they were false." 

SERVANTS — liveried deputies, upon whose tag-rag-and- 
bobtail shoulders we wear our own pride and ostentation; 
household sinecurists, who invariably do the less, the less they 
have to do ; domestic drones, who are often the plagues, and 
not seldom the masters of their masters. Many who have'now 
become too grand for grand liveries, and will not shoulder 
the shoulder-knot, are only to be distinguished from those 
whom they serve by their better looks and figures, and more 
magisterial air. Let no man expect to be well attended in 
a large establishment ; where there are many waiters, the 
master is generally the longest waiter. A Grand Prior of 
France, once abusing Palapret for beating his lackey, he 
replied in a rage — " Zooks, Sir, he deserves it ; I have but 
this one, and yet I am every bit as badly served as you who 
have twenty." 

SET-DOWN. — That species of rebuke familiarly termed 
a set-down, when it has been merited by the offending party, 
and is inflicted without an undue severity, is generally very 
acceptable to every one but its object. An empty coxcomb,, 
after having engrossed the attention of the company for 



33o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

some time with himself and his petty ailments, observed to 
Dr. Parr, that he could never go out without catching cold 
in his head. "No wonder," cried the doctor, pettishly, "you 
always go out without anything in it." Another of the same 
stamp, who imagined himself to be a poet, once said to 
Nat. Lee, "Is it not easy to write like a madman, as you 
do?" "No; but it is very easy to write like a fool, as 
you do." 

SETTLER.— Tom Hood, in one of his delightful Comic 
Annuals, has an engraving of a colonist meeting a settler 
in the form of an infuriated lion, who with bristling mane 
seems prepared to give the stranger a passport down his 
throat. We may encounter a less formidable, but equally 
conclusive settler, without stirring from our own fire-sides, 
and afford a proof at the same time, that a bad thing put 
into the mouth will sometimes bring a good thing out of 
it. — An epicure, while eating oysters, swallowed one that 
was not fresh. " Zounds, waiter ! " he ejaculated, making 
a wry face, " what sort of an oyster do you call this ? " 
" A native, Sir," replied the wielder of the knife. " A native ! 
«— / call it a settler, so you need not open any more. — 
What's to pay ? " 

SHOOTING THE LONG-BOW— stretching a fact till 
you have made it as long as you want it. Lord Herbert of 
Cherbury s tastes have descended to some of our modern 
nobility, for he tells us in his Autobiography, "The exercises 
I chiefly used, and most recommended to my posterity, were, 
riding the great horse and fencing. I do much approve like- 
wise of sJiooting in the lo7ig-bow? So does our ingenious 

contemporary, Lord G , who never suffers himself to be 

outstripped in the marvellous. The Marquis of H had 

engaged the attention of a dinner party, by stating that he 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 331 

had caught a pike, the day before, which weighed nineteen 

pounds. " Pooh ! " cried Lord G , " that is nothing to 

the salmon I hooked last week, which weighed fifty-six 
pounds." " Hang it," whispered the Marquis to his neigh- 
bour, " I wish I could catch my pike again ; I would add ten 
pounds to him directly." 

SICKNESS — without reference to the religious impres- 
sions it is calculated to awaken, is well worth enduring, now 
and then, not only for the pleasure of convalescence, but 
that we may learn a due and grateful sense of the blessing of 
health. "Every recovery," says Jean Paul Richter, "is a 
palingenesia, and bringing back of our youth, making 
us love the earth, and those that are on it, with a new 
love." 

SIDE WIND ATTACK— the not uncommon custom of 
pelting a friend, after he has left the company, seems to have 
been derived from the practice of the ancient tribes, who 
erected a monument to a departed hero, by throwing stones 
upon him. 

SILENCE — a thing which it is often difficult to keep, in 
exact proportion as it is dangerous not to keep it. So frail 
that we cannot even speak of it without breaking it, and yet 
as easily and as completely to be restored as it was de- 
stroyed, few people understand the use, or appreciate the 
value of this mysterious quality. All men when they talk, 
think that they are conferring pleasure upon others, because 
they feel it themselves; but none suspect that the same 
object may sometimes be more effectually obtained by their 
silence. A good listener is much more rare than a good 
talker, because the conversation of general society seldom 
fixes the attention, and thus in the hopelessness of curing 



332 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

the evil, we aggravate it. " When I go into company," said 

L , " I am compelled to become as great a chatterbox as 

the rest, because I had rather hear my own nonsense than 
that of other people." " After all," observed his niece one 
day, when he was twitting her with her loquacity, — " I know 
many men who talk more than women : " — " Ay," was the 
reply, " more to the point." 

L was once overturned in a carriage with his niece, 

who, finding after all her screams, that she had received no 
hurt, asked her uncle how, in such an imminent danger, he 
could have preserved so perfect a silence. " Because I was 
tolerably sure that death would not be frightened away by 
my making a noise." 

Socrates, when a chatterbox applied to him to be taught 
rhetoric, said that he must pay double the usual price, 
because it would first be necessary to teach him to hold his 
tongue. We may be sometimes gainers by practising this 
difficult art, even at a festive meeting. " Silence," exclaimed 
an epicure to some noisy guests, " you make so much noise 
that we don't know what we are eating." 

SILK — the refuse of a reptile, employed to give distinction 
and dignity to the lord of the creation. Compare the cater- 
pillar in its cocoon, with the king's counsel in his silk gown, 
and in adjusting the claims of the rival worms, the palm of 
ingenuity must be conceded to the former, because it spins 
and fashions its own covering, whereas the latter can only 
spin out the thread of empty elocution, and weave a web of 
sophistry. The Abbe* Raynal calls silk, "Fouvrage de ce ver 
rampant, qui habille Fhomme de feuilles d^arbres e'laborees 
dans son sein." Hear how the pompous Gibbon gives the same 
information. " I need not explain that silk is originally spun 
from the bowels of a caterpillar, and that it composes the 
golden tomb, whence a worm emerges in the form of a 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 333 

butterfly." There is an Arabian proverb which conveys the 
same fact in a much more moral and poetical form. " With 
patience and perseverance, the leaf of the mulberry tree 
becomes satin." 

SLANDERER — a person of whom the Greeks showed a 
due appreciation, when they made the word synonymous 
with devil. Slanderers are at all events economical, for they 
make a little scandal go a great way, and rarely open their 
mouths, except at the expense of other people. We must 
allow that they have good excuse for being defamatory, if it 
be their object to bring down others to their own level. It 
may be further urged in their extenuation, that they are 
driven to their trade by necessity ; they filch the fair cha- 
racter of others, because they have none of their own ; and 
with this advantage, that the stolen property can never be 
found upon them. There is a defence also for their covert 
and cowardly mode of attacking you, for how can you expect 
that backbiters should meet you face to face ? Nay, they 
have even a valid plea for being so foul-mouthed, considering 
how often they have been compelled to eat their own words. 
Hang them ! let us do the fellows justice ! 

SLAVE-DRIVER — a white brute employed to coerce and 
torture black men. Old Fuller calls Negroes, " images of 
God carved in ebony." May we not say of their white task- 
masters, that they are images of the devil carved in ivory. 

SNUFF — dirt thrust up the nostrils with a pig-like snort, 
as a sternutatory, which is not to be sneezed at. The 
moment he has thus defeated his own object, the snuffing 
snuff-taker becomes the slave of a habit, which literally 
brings his nose to the grindstone ; his Ormskirk has seized 
him as St. Dunstan did the devil, and if the red hot pincers 



334 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

could occasionally start up from the midst of the rappee, few 
persons would regret their embracing the proboscis of the 
offender. Lord Stanhope has very exactly calculated that in 
forty years, two entire years of the snuff-taker's life will be 
devoted to tickling his nose, and two more to the agreeable 
processes of blowing and wiping it, with other incidental cir- 
cumstances. Well would it be if we bestowed half the time 
in making ourselves agreeable, that we waste in rendering 
ourselves offensive to our friends. Society takes its revenge 
by deciding, that no man would thrust dirt into his head, if 
he had got any thing else in it. 

SOCIETY. — If persons would never meet except when 
they have something to say, and if they would always sepa- 
rate when they have exhausted their pleasant or profitable 
topics, how delightful, but alas ! how evanescent would be 
our social assemblages. 

SOLDIER — a man machine, so thoroughly deprived of 
its human portion, that at the breath of another man 
machine, it will blindly inflict or suffer destruction. Divested 
of his tinsel trappings, his gold lace, feathers, music, and the 
glitter of the false glory with which it has been attempted 
to dazzle the world as to his real state, it is difficult to 
imagine any thing more humiliating, than the condition of a 
soldier. 

Nothing so much shows the triumph of opinion and usage 
over fact, of the conventional over the abstract, as that a 
profession, apparently so much at variance with all their 
feelings, should be chosen by gentlemen of independence, 
humanity, and reflection. Nothing is more redeeming to our 
common nature than that such men, placed in a sphere so 
expressly calculated to make them both slavish. and tyranni- 
cal, should generally preserve their good qualities from con- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 335 

tamination. Few characters so honourable, few gentlemen 
so courteous, few companions so agreeable as a British 
officer; but this is not in consequence, but in spite of his 
being in the army. Why he ever entered it, we presume not 
to inquire, but we are bound to believe that his motive was 
not less rational and amiable than that of the affectionate 
Irishman, who enlisted in the seventy-fifth regiment, in order 
to be near his brother, who was a corporal in the seventy- 
sixth. — {Vide Josephus Molitor.) 

SPECULATION — a word that sometimes begins with its 
second letter. 

SPINSTER — an unprotected female, and of course a fine 
subject for exercising the courage of cowards, and the wit of 
the witless. 

STEAM. — Strange that there should slumber in yonder 
tranquil pond, a power so tremendous, that could we con- 
dense and direct its energies, it might cleave the solid earth 
in twain, and yet so gentle that it may be governed, and 
applied, and set to perform its stupendous miracles by a 
child ! The discovery that water would resist being boiled 
above 212 degrees, has conferred upon England its manufac- 
turing supremacy, and will eventually produce changes, both 
moral and physical, of which it is difficult to limit the extent. 
One bushel of coals, properly consumed, will raise seventy 
millions of pounds weight a foot high. The Menai Bridge, 
weighing four millions of pounds, suspended at a medium 
height of 120 feet, might have been raised where it is, by 
seven bushels of coals. M. Dupin estimates the steam 
engines of England to possess a moving power equivalent to 
that of 6,400,000 men at .the windlass. And this stupendous 
agent is at present only in its infancy I 



336 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

STOMACH — the epicure's deity. Buffon gave it as his 
deliberate conviction, that this portion of our economy was 
the seat of thought, an opinion which he seems to have 
adopted from Persius, who dubs it a master of arts, and the 
dispenser of genius. So satisfied are we of its reflecting dis- 
position, that we call a cow, or other beast with two stomachs, 
a ruminating animal par excellence. To judge by the 
quantity they eat, we might infer some of our own species to 
have two stomachs ; but when we listen to their discourse, 
we find it difficult to include them in the class of ruminating 
animals. 

STONE, The Philosopher's — the folly of those who have 
inherited Midas's ears without his touch. A will-o'-the-wisp, 
however, does not always lead us into quagmires ; in running 
after shadows we sometimes catch substances, and in fol- 
lowing illusions overtake the most valuable realities. The 
pursuit of the philosopher's stone has by no means been a 
vain one. Alchymy has given us chymistry, and we are in- 
debted to the astrologers for the elucidations of the most 
difficult problems in astronomy. The clown, who in running 
to catch a fallen star, stumbled, and kicked up a hidden 
treasure, has found many an unintentional imitator among 
scientific visionaries and stargazers. Perhaps more has been 
gained by long and vainly seeking the quadrature of the 
circle, the longitude, and perpetual motion, than would have 
arisen from immediate success. Morals, too, have their 
philosopher's stone, in other shapes than those of Plato's 
Atlantis, or More's Utopia; and it is healthy to chase such 
chimeras, if it were only for the sake of air and exercise, in 
an atmosphere of purity. Many real virtues may be acquired 
by straining after an imaginary and unattainable perfection. 
Crede quod /tabes, et habes. When a thing is once believed 
possible, it is half realized. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 337 

STONE to pelt with. — Dr. Magee affirms, that the 
Roman Catholics have a Church without a religion; — the 
Dissenters, a religion without a Church ; — the Establishment, 
both a Church and a religion. " This is false," observes 
Robert Hall of Leicester; "but it is an excellent stone for a 
clergyman to pelt with." 

STUPIDITY — is often more apparent than real; it may 
be indisposition rather than incapacity. The human mind 
is not like logic — the major does not always contain the 
minor; and men who feel themselves fit for great things, 
cannot always accomplish little ones. Claude Lorraine was 
dismissed by the pastry-cook to whom he had been appren- 
ticed, for sheer stupidity. The difficulty did not consist in 
bringing his mind up, but in bringing it down to the manu- 
facture of buns and tartlets. 

STYLE. — To have a good style in writing, you should 
have none ; as perfect beauty of face consists in the absence 
of any predominant feature. Mannerism, whether in writing 
or painting, can never be a merit. Swift is right when he 
decides, that " Proper words in proper places, make the true 
definition of a good style." 

" He who would write well," says Roger Ascham, "must 
follow the advice of Aristotle, — to speak as the common 
people speak, and to think as the wise think." Style, how- 
ever, is but the colouring of the picture, which should 
always be held subordinate to the design. " We may well 
forgive Tertullian his iron style," says Balzac, "when we 
recollect what excellent weapons he has forged out of this 
iron, for the defence of Christianity, and the defeat of the 
Marcionites and Valentinians." 

SUBSCRIPTIONS, Private— paying your creditors by 

z 



338 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

taxing your friends ; an approved method for getting rid of 
both. Many years ago a worthy and well-known Baronet, 
having become embarrassed in his circumstances, a Sub- 
scription was set on foot by his friends, and a letter, 
soliciting contributions, was addressed to the late Lord 
Erskine, who immediately dispatched the following an- 
swer : — 

" My dear Sir John, 
" I am in general an enemy to Subscriptions of this nature; 
first, because my own finances are by no means in a flourish- 
ing plight ; and secondly, because pecuniary assistance, thus 
conferred, must be equally painful to the donor and the 
receiver. As I feel, however, the sincerest gratitude for your 
public services, and regard for your private worth, I have 
great pleasure in subscribing — (Here the worthy Baronet, 
big with expectation, turned over the leaf, and finished the 
perusal of the note, which terminated as follows) : — in sub- 
scribing myself, 

" My dear Sir John, 

a Yours very faithfully, 

" Erskine." 

SUGGESTION, A friendly.— A man who had had his 
ears cuffed in a squabble, without resenting the affront, 
being shortly afterwards in a party, and in want of a pinch 
of snuff, exclaimed, " I cannot think what I have done with 
my box ; it is not in either of my pockets." — " Try your ears," 
said a bystander. 

SUPERSTITION,— as Plutarch has well observed, is 
much worse than atheism, since it must be less offensive to 
deny the existence of such a deity as Saturn, than to admit 
his existence, and affirm, that he was such an unnatural mon- 
ster, as even to devour his own children. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 339 

Archbishop Tillotson says, " According as men's notions 
of God are, such will their religions be ; if they have gross 
and false conceptions of God, their religion will be absurd 
and superstitious. If men fancy God to be an ill-natured 
Being, armed with infinite power, who takes delight in the 
misery and ruin of his creatures, and is ready to take all 
advantages against them, they may fear him, but they will 
hate him, and they will be apt to be such towards one an- 
other, as they fancy God to be toward them ; for all religion 
doth naturally incline men to imitate him whom they wor- 
ship." — Sermons, vol. i. p. 181. 

" Atheism," observes a Christian philosopher, " leaves a 
man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to 
reputation ; all which may be guides to an. outward moral 
virtue, though religion were not ; but superstition dismounts 
all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of 
men." — (Bacon's Essays, p. 96.) In point of fact, the mis- 
representation of a deity, leads immediately to the denial of 
his existence; a result which has not escaped the acuteness 
oi Plutarch. " The atheist," says that writer, " contributes 
not in the least to superstition; but superstition, having given 
out so hideous an idea of the Deity, has frightened many 
into the utter disbelief of any such being ; because, they 
think it much better, nay, more reasonable, that there should 
be no deity, than one whom they see more reason to hate 
and abominate, than to love, honour, and reverence. Thus 
inconsiderate men, shocked at the deformity of Superstition, 
run directly into the opposite extreme of atheism, heedlessly 
skipping over true piety, which is the golden mean between 
both." 

How certainly should we avoid the degrading superstition 
of demonism, did we but act upon the following position of 
Archbishop Tillotson: — " Every good man is, in some degree, 
partaker of the divine nature, and feels that in himself, which 

z 2 



34o THE TIN TRUMPET; 

he conceives to be in God ; so that this man does experience 
what others do but talk of; — he sees the image of God in 
himself, and is able to discourse of him from an inward 
sense and feeling of his excellency." — {Sermons, vol. iii. p. 
42.) If we thus behold the Deity reflected in our own hearts, 
no wonder that the religion of the good man should be 
rational and cheerful, and that of the bad man superstitious 
and gloomy. How forcibly does the latter recall the passage 
in Bacon's noble essay — " Of Unity in Religion," where he 
says — " It was a great blasphemy when the devil said, ' I will 
ascend, and be like the Highest;' but it is greater blasphemy 
to personate God, and bring him in, saying — ' I will descend, 
and be like the Prince of Darkness.' Surely this is to bring 
down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in 
the shape of a vulture, or raven; and to set out of the bark 
of the Christian Church a flag" of a bark of pirates and 



SUPPER — a receipt for indigestion, and a sleepless 
night. A Spanish proverb says — A little in the morning 
is enough ; enough at dinner is but little ; a little at night 
is too much. This agrees pretty nearly with the Latin 
dictum — 

Pone gulae metas, ut sit tibi longior Betas, 
Esse cupis sanus ? — Sit tibi parca manus. 

SYMPATHY — a sensibility, of which its objects are 
sometimes insensible. It may be perilous to discourage a 
feeling, whereof there is no great superabundance in this 
selfish and hard-hearted world ; but even of the little that 
exists, a portion is frequently thrown away. Such is the 
power of adaptation in the human mind, that those who 
seem to be in the most pitiable plight, have often the least 
occasion for our pity. A city damsel, whose ideas had been 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 341 

Arcadianised by the perusal of pastorals, having once made 
an excursion to a distance of twenty miles from London, 
wandered into the fields in the hope of discovering a bond 
fide live shepherd. To her infinite delight, she at length en- 
countered one, under a hawthorn hedge in full blossom, with 
his dog by his side, his crook in his hand, and his sheep 
round about him, just as if he were sitting to be modelled in 
china for a chimney ornament. To be sure, he did not 
exhibit the azure jacket, jessamine vest, pink tiffany inexpres- 
sibles, peach-coloured stockings, and golden buckles of those 
faithful portraitures. This was mortifying; still more so, 
that he was neither particularly young nor cleanly ; but, most 
of all, that he wanted the indispensable accompaniment of a 
pastoral reed, in order that he might beguile his solitude 
with the charms of music. Touched with pity at this priva- 
tion, and lapsing, unconsciously, into poetical language, the 
civic damsel exclaimed — " Ah ! gentle shepherd, tell me 
where's your pipe?" — " I left it at home, Miss," replied the 
clown, scratching his head, " cause I ha'nt got no baccy." 

A benevolent committee-man of the Society for super- 
seding the necessity of climbing boys, seeing a sooty urchin 
weeping bitterly, at the corner of a street, asked him the 
cause of his distress ; — " Master has been using me shame- 
fully," sobbed the sable sufferer; — " he has been letting Jem 
Hudson go up the chimney at No. 9, when it was my turn ! 
He said it was too high, and too dangerous for me, but I'll 
go up a chimney with Jem Hudson any day in the year; 
that's what I will ! " 

There is a local sympathy, however, in which we cannot 
well be mistaken, and which it is lamentable not to possess ; 
for that man — to use the words of Dr. Johnson — " is little 
to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the 
plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer 
among the ruins of Iona." 



34 2 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

Even the most obdurate and perverse natures cannot 
always resist the power of sympathy. Indecorous as it is, 
we must quote Lord Peterborough's observation on the 
celebrated Fene'lon ; — "He is a delicious creature; I was 
forced to get away from him as fast as I possibly could, else 
he would have made me pious." As a profane man may be 
pleased with piety, so may a wise one be occasionally 
pleased with folly, through sympathy with the pleasures of 
others. 

Most misplaced and mischievous of all, is that spurious 
sympathy, by which some of our journalists and novel 
writers seek to enlist our feelings in the cause of the 
basest malefactors. — " To make criminals the object of a 
sentimental admiration, and of a sort of familiar attach- 
ment ; to hold up as a hero the treacherous murderer, 
whose life has been passed in reckless profligacy, merely 
because, at his death, he displays a firmness which scarcely 
ever deserts the vilest, is a task as unworthy of literary 
talents, as it is unfit for cultivated and liberal minds." — 
Ed. Review ', vol. xl. p. 202. 



ALE NT. — What we want in natural abilities 
may generally and easily be made up in in- 
dustry ; as a dwarf may keep pace with a giant, 
if he will but move his legs a little faster. 
" Mother !" said the Spartan boy, going to 

battle, "my sword is too short." — "Add a step to it," was 

the reply. 

TALKERS, Great— not only do the least, but generally 
say the least, if their words be weighed, instead of reckoned. 
He who labours under an incontinence of speech, seldom 
gets the better of his complaint; for he must prescribe for 




. OR, HEADS AND TALES. 343 

himself, and is sure of having a fool for his physician. How 
many a chatterbox might pass for a wiseacre, if he could 
keep his own secret, and put a drag chain, now and then, 
upon his tongue. The largest minds have the smallest 
opinion of themselves ; for their knowledge impresses them 
with humility, by showing the extent of their ignorance, and 
this discovery makes them taciturn. Deep waters are still ; 
wise men generally talk little, because they think much : 
feeling the annoyance of idle loquacity in others, they 
are cautious of falling into' the same error, and keep 
their mouths shut, when they cannot open them to the 
purpose. 

Small wits, on the contrary, are usually great talkers. 
Uttering whatever comes uppermost, and everything being 
superficial, their shallowness makes them noisy, and their 
confidence offensive. If we might perpetrate, at the same time r 
a pun and paradox, we should affirm, that the smaller the 
calibre of the mind, the greater the bore of a perpetually open 
mouth. Human heads are like hogsheads — the emptier they 
are, the louder report they give of themselves. The chatterbox, 
according to the Italians, " ftarla prima e fiensa fioij" but 
we have specimens in this country, who never think, either 
before or after. The clack of their word-mill is heard even 
when there is no wind to set it going, and no grist to come 
from it. 

M. de Bautre', being in the antechamber of Cardinal Riche- 
lieu, at the time that a great talker was loudly and incessantly 
babbling, begged him to be silent, lest he should annoy the 
Cardinal. — " Why do you wish me not to speak ? " asked the 
chatterbox ;— " I talk a good deal, but I talk well." — " Half 



TASTE — a quick and just perception of beauty and de- 
formity in the works of nature and art. 



344 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

TAVERN — a house kept for those who are not house- 
keepers. 

TEST ACTS — devices for letting in the unscrupulous 
and irreligious, and for excluding the conscientious and the 
pious. All churches have had them, and all have found them 
equally inefficacious. Requiring a man to receive the Sacra- 
ment, and thus profane a sacred ordinance, as a qualification 
for the proper discharge of a civil office, is about as germane 
to the matter, as if you were to stipulate that your dairymaid 
should go through the process of being vaccinated, as a 
security for her making good butter, and never attempting to 
injure your cow. 

They who imagine that a particular form of test, because 
it succeeds perfectly well in one instance, must be equally 
efficacious in all, without reference to the circumstances of 
the case, or the materials upon which the experiment is to 
be made, fall into the same mistake as the simple country 
girl, who, having seen a laundress spit upon a flat iron, to 
ascertain whether it were too hot, spat in her smoking por- 
ridge, to see whether it would burn her mouth. 

TEXT, Scriptural — a fertile source of delusion and 
bigotry to those particularly clear-sighted people, who 
prefer the letter which killeth, to the spirit which giveth 
life. 

From drugs intended to impart 

Relief to sickness, care, and pain, 
The chymist, with transmutive art, 

Extracts a poison and a bane. 
So does the bigot's art abuse 

The sacred page of love and life, 
And turn its sweet and hallowed use 

To deadly bitterness and strife. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 345 

As purblind or short-sighted elves 
Measure their glasses by themselves, 
And deem those spectacles most true 
Which suit their own distorted view, 
So every weak, fanatic creature 
Makes of himself a Bible-meter ; 
Chooses those portions of the word 
Which with his blindness best accord, 
And closes up his darkened soul 
Against the spirit of the whole. 

Learn this, ye flounderers in the traps 
Of insulated lines and scraps,— 
Though all the texts of Scripture shoot, 

Like hairs within a horse's tail, 
From one consolidated root, 

Where beauty, strength, and use prevail, 
Singly, they're fit, like single hairs, 
Only for springes, nets, and snares.* 

Teritullian gives the best advice upon this subject when he 
says — " We ought to interpret Scripture, not by the sound 
of words, but by the nature of things." — Malo te ad sensum 
rei, quam ad sonum vocabuli exerceas. 

THEOLOGY, Controversial — is to religion what law is to 
justice, a science which darkens by its illustrations, and misses 
its object in its over anxiety to attain it. If truth may be 
called the sun of religion, controversial theology is assuredly 
its Will-o'-the-wisp. 

Theology, says Le Clerc, is subject to revolutions as well 
as empires, but though it has undergone considerable 
changes, yet the humour of divines is much the same. 

TIME — the vehicle that carries everything into nothing. 
We talk of spending our time, as if it were so much interest 

* Versified from Dr. Donne. 



34 6 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

of a perpetual annuity; whereas we are all living upon our 
capital, and he who wastes a single day, throws away that 
which can never be recalled or recovered. 

TINDER — a thin rag, such for instance as the dresses of 
modern females, intended to catch the sparks, raise a flame, 
and light up a match. 

TITHES — being a remuneration for a particular service, 
ought not only to be fairly proportioned to the talent and in- 
dustry of the performer, but to be subject to regulation like 
any other salary, where the duty is improperly discharged, or 
altogether omitted. To pretend that tithes are absolute 
property, is a mere fiction. If they were like an estate, why 
do men complain of the scandal of pluralities or of simony? 
Who ever hears of the scandal of possessing three or four 
estates, or of simoniacal contracts for lands and houses? 
Except by consent of another, the Tithe-owner has no 
property whatever, for the landholder, if he please, may 
refuse to cultivate the soil, and then the former has no in- 
terest in it, and the assumed property of tithe is pro tempore 
annihilated. 

That tithes are sacred, and inalienable, is another fiction. 
If the assertion were true, they would still belong, of right, 
to the Roman Catholic clergy, from whom Henry VIII. wrested 
them, with very little form of law. In point of fact, they 
have repeatedly been made the subject of legislative inter- 
ference, and from a very early period, as will be seen by the 
following extract : — 

" William the Conqueror -and his Clergy. — With such 
enormous riches at their disposal, they became unduly 
powerful ; and William, jealous of that power, and suspicious 
of their fidelity, reduced all their lands to the common 
tenure of knights' service and barony — (equivalent to reduc- 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 347 

ing a freehold to a lease for fourteen years, subject to be 
renewed at the pleasure of the real owner). The prelates 
were required to take an oath of fealty, and to do homage to 
the king, before they could be admitted to their temporalities, 
and they were also subject to an attendance before the king 
in his Court Baron, to follow him in all his wars with their 
knights and quota of soldiers, and to perform all other 
services incident to feudal tenures. The clergy remonstrated 
most bitterly against this new revolution, equalled only by 
the revolution which took place in church property five cen- 
turies afterwards ; but William, like Henry VIII., was inexor- 
able, and consigned to prison or banishment all who opposed 
his will." — From Bailies' History of the Coimty Palatine of 
Lancaster. 

It is, we believe, upon this tenure, and as feudal barons., 
that the bishops claim the right of sitting in the House of Peers. 

But tithes have been legally alienated or abolished, though 
not quite so unceremoniously, since the time of Henry VIII. 
Waste lands for the purpose of removing the obstacle to 
their improvement, were exempted by a statute of Ed- 
ward VI. from all tithe for seven years. Madder, on ac- 
count of the expense of its cultivation, has been relieved 
altogether from this payment. In Scotland, as it is well 
known, tithes were entirely abolished by a very pious 
monarch, Charles I., who sets forth in the preamble to his 
famous Decret Arbitral, that it is " expedient for the well- 
being of the realm, the better providing of kirks and sti- 
pends, and the establishment of schools and other pious 
uses, that each proprietor shall have and enjoy his own 
teind (tithe) ; and therefore decrees that all teinds shall be 
valued and sold, according to certain rules for making the 
estimate; which was ratified in Parliament by the act 1633, 
cap. 17." However sacred, therefore, may be the Church's 
claims and rights, they have been repeatedly abrogated or 



348 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

encroached upon when the common weal required the in- 
fringement. 

The most eminent and pious men in all ages have been 
opposed to this mode of supporting the clergy. WiclifT re- 
peatedly asserts that the spirit of Christianity was wounded 
by clerical endowments; and that venom was poured into 
the Church, on the very day which first invested her minis- 
ters, as such, with the rights of property. Archdeacon Paley, 
who can hardly be considered unfriendly to the real interests 
of the Church, says, " Of all institutions adverse to cultiva- 
tion and improvement, none is so noxious as that of tithes. 
They are a tax not only upon industry, but upon that industry 
which feeds mankind, upon that species of exertion which it 
is the aim of all wise laws to cherish and promote." 

When any attempt is made to correct the evils of this 
impolitic and vexatious impost, without injury to existing 
rights, a cry of robbery and sacrilege is incontinently raised 
by the very pastors who value their flocks, as if they were 
Merino sheep, solely for the sake of the fleece. And after 
all, who have been such unblushing alienators, not to say 
usurpers of tithe, as the clergy themselves ? Originally, as 
Southey admits in his Book of the Church, c. vi., " the 
whole was received into a common fund, for the fourfold 
purpose of supporting the clergy, repairing the church, re- 
lieving the poor, and entertaining the pilgrim and stranger." 
Who are the parties that have perverted this fund from its 
original pious uses, and turned it all into their own pockets ? 
If the clergy were not the first instigators of this abuse, they 
are at all events the greatest gainers by it, not seeming ever 
to have thought of their Master's injunction — " Freely ye 
have received, freely give." (Matthew, ch. x. v. 8.) 

The opinion that every man should be allowed, not only 
to choose his own religion, but to contribute as he thinks 
proper towards the support of the pastor, whose duties he 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 349 

exacts, has been maintained by Dr. Adam Smith, as well as 
other enlightened and devout philosophers, and has been 
successfully carried into practice by a vast empire — the 
United States of America. To plead that the voluntary 
system in England would not adequately support the 
Church, is to give up the Church, by admitting that it 
has no hold upon the affections of the people ; and that 
the Catholics and Dissenters have so much more zeal in 
the cause of religion, as to contribute both to the established 
system and their own, while the Episcopalians would not 
even maintain one priesthood, except upon compulsion. A 
spiritual institution, which, after so many centuries of power 
and wealth, would immediately fall to the ground, unless 
propped up by force of law, is surely self-condemned. 

To render tithes at all consistent with policy and justice, 
they should only be imposed to support the religion of the 
great majority of the people. Where the contrary is the 
case, as is signally exemplified in Ireland, such an impost is 
an oppression so unwarrantable and irritating, that we can 
little wonder at the national misery and disturbance of 
which it has been the fruitful source. In no way, however, 
are the existing Clergy answerable for the present mis- 
chievous system of tithe, either in England or Ireland. 
They have found, not made it, and are entitled to a just 
and liberal compensation for any rights that they may 
surrender. But for Heaven's sake — or if this plea have 
lost its efficacy — for the sake of earth, and its peace and 
prosperity, let us have some quick composition for these 
blood-stained tithes, at least in Ireland. When assailed by 
the legislature, it is to be hoped that they will not receive 
the same supernatural support once experienced in France, 
the annals of which country assure us that in the year 793, 
the ears of corn were all void of substance, and demons 
were heard in the air, proclaiming that they had ravaged 



350 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

the harvests, in order to avenge the clergy, for the reluctance 
of the people to the payment of tithes ! — St. Foix, who 
relates this story, asks, " how did the devils come to interest 
themselves so warmly in behalf of the priesthood ? " 

It is maintained by some, that in England the tithes are 
no hardship, or that they solely affect the landlord : nay, it 
is affirmed by one writer, that the agricultural interest in 
general desire their conservation. My friend T. H., who 
will have his joke, however serious may be the subject, or 
pitiful the pun it elicits, — asserts, that the burthen of this 
impost falls upon the farmer, and that if he be really in 
favour of the tithe, it must be for the same reason that the 
Mahometan respects Mecca — because it is the burial-place 
of his prophet. 

TITLES of BOOKS — decoys to catch purchasers. 
There can be no doubt that a happy name to a book is 
like an agreeable appearance to a man; but if in either 
case the final do not answer to the first impression, will 
not our disappointment add to the severity of our judg- 
ment ? " Let me succeed with my first impression," the 
bibliopolist will cry, " and I ask no more. The public 
are welcome to end with condemning, if they will only 
begin with buying. Most readers, like the Tuft-hunters 
at college, are caught by titles." How inconsistent are 
our notions of morality ! No man of honour would open 
a letter that was not addressed to him, though he will 
not scruple to open a book under the same circumstances- 
Colton's " Lacon," has gone through thirteen editions, and 
yet it is addressed "TO THOSE WHO think." Had the 
author substituted for these words "those who think they 
are thinking," it might not have had so extensive a sale, 
although it would have been directed to a much larger class. 
He has shown address in his address. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 351 

TOLERATION — being wise enough to have no differ- 
ence with those who differ from us. The mutual rancour 
of conflicting sects is inversely as their distance from each 
other; no one hating a Jew or a Pagan half so much as 
a fellow-Christian, who agrees with him in all but one 
unimportant point. 

If a Hindoo or Mahometan philosopher were to con- 
template five hundred different sects of Christians, spitting 
fire and eternal perdition at each other, in flagrant defiance 
of the very Scriptures which they profess to teach and obey, 
would he not be tempted to exclaim — " Unhappy men ! ye 
are all likely to be equally right in your denunciations, for 
when ye condemn each other, ye condemn yourselves ! " 

Fain would the bard on all impress 

The hatred of intolerance, 
Teach them their fellow men to bless, 

Whatever doctrines they advance, 
Bid every fierce contending sect 
Humble its passions, and reflect, 
That real Christians love the souls 

Of those by whom their own are doom'd, 
As frankincense perfumes the coals 

By which it is itself consumed. 

TOMB— a house built for a skeleton: — a dwelling of 
sculptured marble, provided for dust and corruption : — 
a monument set up to perpetuate the memory of — the 
forgotten. 

TONGUE — the mysterious membrane that turns thought 
into sound. Drink is its oil — eating its drag- chain. 

TRAGEDY — is preferred to comedy — (unless it be the 
comedie larmoyantej) — and novels with a distressing con- 
clusion, to those which end happily, because they occasion 



352 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

a greater excitement. By nature, we are all more acutely 
sensible of pain than pleasure, and can therefore sympathize 
more intensely with the former than the latter. All persons 
like strong sensations, and the novel-reading world in parti- 
cular, consisting mostly of male or female idlers of the 
better class, little conversant with real miseries, fly for a 
relief from the monotony and mental stagnation of tranquil 
life, to the stimulus of fictitious distress. Their sympathy 
with imaginary happiness is too tame to deserve the name 
of an emotion. 

TRIALS — moral ballast, that often prevents our capsizing. 
Where we have much to carry, God rarely fails to fit the 
back to the burthen; where we have nothing to bear, we 
can seldom bear ourselves. The burthened vessel may be 
slow in reaching the destined port ; but the vessel without 
ballast becomes so completely the sport of the winds and 
waves, that there is danger of her not reaching it at all. 

TRIFLES — may be not only tolerated but admired, when 
we respect the trifler. Little things, it has been said, are 
only valued when coming from him who can do great things. 
It has been affirmed that trifles are often more absorbing 
than matters of importance ; but this can only be true when 
said of a trifler — of a mean mind pursuing mean objects. 
Mirabeau maintains that morality in trifles, is always the 
enemy of morality in things of importance ; a position not 
less untrue than dangerous; for it is precisely in trivial 
affairs that a delicate sense of honour and rectitude is most 
certainly exhibited, as we throw up a feather and not a stone 
to ascertain the direction of the wind. 

TRUTHS.— Many a truth is like a wolf which we hold by 
the ears— afraid to let it escape, and yet scarcely able to 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 353 

retain it. And why should we let it go, if it be likely to 
worry or annoy our neighbour ? To promulgate truth with a 
malicious intention, is worse than to infringe it with a 
benevolent one, inasmuch as a pleasant deception is often 
better than a painful reality. It was a saying of the selfish 
Fontenelle, that if he held the most important truth, like a 
bird in his hand, he would rather crush it than let it go. 
Lessing, the German, on the contrary, found such a delight 
in the investigation of truth, that he professed his readiness 
to make over all claim as its discoverer, provided he might 
still be allowed to pursue it. Nor can we wonder at his 
holy ardour, for to follow truth to its source, is to stand at 
the footstool of God. 



GLINESS — an advantageous stimulus to the 
mind, that it may make up for the deficiencies 
of the body. Medusa's head was carried by 
Minerva; and it will generally be found, that 
as beauty remains satisfied with exterior attrac- 
tions, plainness strives to recommend itself by interior 
beauty. Talent and amiability, which are more loveable 
than mere loveliness, will always impart a charm to their 
possessor, as the want of them will render even a Venus 
unattractive. Countenance, or moral beauty, the reflection 
of the soul, is as superior to superficial comeliness, as mind 
is to matter. It is a halo, which indicates the mens divinior, 
and will win worshippers, however unadorned may be the 
shrine whence it emanates, for she who looks good cannot: 
fail to be good-looking. 

UMBRELLA — an article which, by the morality of society, 
you may steal from friend or foe, and which, for the same 
reason, you should not lend to either. 

A A 



354 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

UNIFORMITY, Religious — a chimera, not less unattain- 
able than identity of taste, or consimilarity of face, form, and 
stature. And why should we believe that God, being recog- 
nised as he is, by all nations, should delight in consentaneous- 
ness as to the mode of worship, when the whole genius of 
the world, both moral and physical, evinces a design to 
introduce the greatest possible diversity into every depart- 
ment of creation ? Varieties of doctrine are but modifica- 
tions of the moral creation, under the influence of the 
religious principle. 

The gems of soul that God hath set 
In frames of silver, gold, and jet, 
Tinged by their tegument of clay, 
May shed a varicolour'd ray ; 
Yet, like the rainbow's motley dyes, 
Unite, and mingle in the skies. 

Man, like the other plants of earth, 
Takes form and pressure from his birth ; 
And since, in various countries, each 
Prays in a different form of speech, 
Why may not God delight to view 
Variety of worship too ; — 
All to one glorious source address'd, 
Although in different forms express'd ? 
The vast orchestra of the earth 

Millions of instruments displays ; 
But when its countless sounds go forth, 

To hymn the same Creator's praise, 
The mighty chorus swells on high, 
In one accepted harmony. 



USURY, Law of — punishing a man for making as much 
as he can of his money, although he is freely allowed to 
make as much money as he can. Usury {ab usu ceris) is 
rent for money, as rent is usury for land. 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 355 



ANITY — like laudanum, and other poisonous 
medicines, is beneficial in small, though in- 
jurious in large quantities. No man, who is not 
pleased with himself, even in a personal sense, 
can please others ; for it is the belief of his own 
grace that makes him graceful and gracious. If it be a 
recommendation to dress our minds to the best advantage, 
and to render ourselves as agreeable as possible, why should 
it be an objection to bestow the same pains upon personal 
appearance ? Dress often influences character ; for the man 
whose well-regulated mind has a due sense of propriety and 
fitness, will train himself from the outside inwards, and act 
up to his externals. Our present uniformity, and plainness 
of attire, have given a monotony to character, and lowered 
the general standard of manners. Who can look upon a 
cloth sleeve and drab trowsers with the elevating feelings 
inspired by embroidered silk and the dangling sword, which, 
in determining the rank, conferred, to a certain degree, the 
sentiments and the demeanour of a gentleman ? When men, 
too, wore different dresses according to their age, they 
naturally adapted their deportment and conversation to their 
attire, which tended still further to produce individual con- 
sistency, and general variety. As old and young now wear 
the same habiliments, there is as little difference in their 
manners as in their coats ; a sameness which cannot be 
right in one direction, and may be wrong in both. 

VERSE. — There seems to be no peculiar adaptation of 
the rhythm or verse to the subject, whether grave or gay, 
which custom and association may not conquer. The 
French Alexandrine, in which Racine composed his tra- 
gedies, and Voltaire his Henriade, is the burlesque verse 

A A 2 



356 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

of the English. Compare the following, or any line of the 
Phedre — 

" D'un mensonge— aussi noir — justement— lrriteY' 

and its rhythm will be found nearly identical with this, from 
Anstey's Bath Guide — 

" For his wig — had the luck — a cathartic — to meet." 

On the contrary, the French burlesque verse is nearly the 
same as the heroic ten syllable verse of the English. 

VICE — miscalculation ; obliquity of moral vision ; tem- 
porary madness. A single vice, thrown aside only because 
it was worn out, is often considered a valid set off against 
all those that we still retain. Heaven, it is said, rejoices 
over one penitent sinner, more than over ninety and nine 
that have never erred ; but it is not written that one sin, by 
which we have been abandoned, is to give us acquittance 
for the ninety and nine that we continue to practise. And 
yet there are many who seem to imagine, that squeamish- 
ness upon a single point will give them warrant for a want 
of scruple upon all others. Brissot, to whose writings and 
conduct the horrid massacres of the Tuileries, on the loth 
of August, 1792, have been principally ascribed, exclaimed, 
in defending himself to Dumont, — " Look at the extreme 
simplicity of my dwelling, and see whether you can justly 
reproach me with dissipation or frivolity. For two years 
I have not been near a theatre ! " The man whose starch 
morality will not allow him to witness tragedies at a play- 
house, may surely be allowed to perpetrate them on the stage 
of real life ! 

It may be doubted, whether vice be so effectually re- 
pressed by the fear of future, as of immediate punishment. 
Jack Ketch exercises a more potent influence than the devil; 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 357 

for none can doubt the existence of the former, while evil 
men have a strong motive to be sceptical as to the existence 
and avenging power of the latter. The hope of future re- 
ward is the best consolation to the good under affliction ; 
but the belief that virtue and vice are their own reward and 
punishment, even in this world, will moralise many from 
a sense of interest, who might not have been so certainly 
reclaimed by a sense of duty. 

VULGARITY — is not found in uncivilized life, because, 
in that state, there is little difference of rank, and less 
of manners; nor is it, in a civilized country, a deficiency 
of politeness or refinement, as compared with the most 
polished classes; for a peasant may be a gentleman, and 
a peer a vulgarian. 

Vulgarity of manners may co-exist with a polished mind, 
and urbanity with a vulgar one : the union of both consti - 
tutes the gentleman, whatever may be the grade in which it 
is found. 



ITCH CRAFT, Belief in — a reproach to rea- 
son, and a monument of folly and atrocity, 
composing part and parcel of the wisdom and 
humanity of our ancestors. The most magical 
circumstance, attending imputed magic, is the 
apparent impossibility of its being believed, even by the 
parties implicated, whether witches or witchfinders. Sorcery 
was a convenient crime to fix upon those who had no other; 
but how could it be credited that helpless, lonely, infirm, 
and suffering old women, — for such were generally reputed 
to be witches, — if they had obtained command over the 
powers of light or darkness, would not exercise it for their 
own benefit and relief, before they thought of directing it to 



358 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

the good or evil of others ? A wretched creature, from mere 
malignity, is supposed to inflict injuries upon her neigh- 
bours ; and yet these identical parties scruple not to provoke 
her terrible malice to the utmost, by bringing her to a 
painful and ignominious death, from which her puissant 
ally, Satan, can do nothing to save her. Was ever such 
a tissue of glaring impossibilities ! Apuleius, who was ac- 
cused of magic, availed himself of this argument — "Sin verb, 
more vulgari, cum isti proprie magum existimant, qui com- 
munione loquendi cum Diis immorlaZibus, ad omina qucB 
velit, incredibili quadam vi, contingere polleat; oppidb miror 
cur accusare non timuerint quern posse tantum fatentur? 

James the First, as it is well known, wrote a treatise on 
Demonology; the large-minded Bacon countenanced witch- 
craft; Sir Matthew Hale thanked God, upon his knees, that 
he had lived to condemn sorcerers to death; the lawyers, 
quoting from the Malleus Malencarum, stickled as stoutly as 
usual for the maintenance of the old law, and the wisdom of 
our ancestors ; while the clergy, citing the Bible, and the 
witch of Endor, stigmatised, as infidels and atheists, those 
who objected to the burning of all old women known to 
be partial to black cats, or suspected of taking nocturnal 
rides through the air, upon an enchanted broomstick. If it 
had not been for the efforts of unprofessional teachers, the 
common people would still remain plunged in a Serbonian 
bog, of the darkest ignorance and superstition. Truly they 
are much indebted to their pastors and masters ! 

WAGS AND WITS— lamps that exhaust themselves in 
giving light to others. Their gibes, their gambols, their 
songs, their flashes of merriment, their puns and bon-mots, 
and bright, and sharp, and pointed sayings, are but as 
so many swords, which, the oftener they are drawn forth, 
do but the sooner wear out the scabbard. It is much easier 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 359 

to make others forget time, than to prevail on old Chronos to 
forget us. The fetes to which a man of wit is invited, only 
afford an excuse to the fates for shortening his thread. He 
finds it is no joke to be always joking ; his stomach and his 
convivial reputation fail him at once ; his jests die because 
he cannot digest ; so many good things have gone into his 
mouth, that none can come out of it; and the fellow of 
mark and likelihood, without whom no party was deemed 
complete, no laughter-loving guests assured of constant 
coruscations and cachinnations, becomes used up, worn 
out, stultified, superannuated, and is left to his obscure 
lodging, to digest, if he can, his own indigestions, to be 
taken by the hand by no one but the gout, and to try 
solitary conclusions with the grim sergeant — death. An 
old joke, especially if it be very little of its age, is a bad 
thing, as the readers of this work must often have exclaimed ; 
but an old joker is a sad thing, as many a facetious ancient 
has found to his cost. 

WANTS — Suicides and self-destroyers. Man's bodily 
wants have been the great stimulus to all the arts, sciences, 
and discoveries, which have elevated him to his present 
civilization. The nakedness, helplessness, and necessities 
of the " bare forked animal," combined with the amazing 
powers and lofty aspirations of his reason, have enabled 
him to become the true lord of the creation, to conquer 
the elements by which he is surrounded, and to make them 
minister not only to the removal of his minutest wants, but 
to the supply of his most superfluous luxuries. Had he been 
born with the fur coat, or the stomach of a bear, he would 
have remained a brute, or at best a savage. 

WAR — National madness. An irrational act confined to 
rational beings; the pastime of kings and statesmen, the 



360 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

curse of subjects. Admitting the social instinct of man, 
Montesquieu was not afraid to confess, that the state of war 
begins with that of society ; but this desolating truth, which 
Hobbes has abused to praise the tranquillity of despotism, 
and Rousseau, to celebrate the superior independence of 
savage life, is with the philosopher the sacred and salu- 
tary plea for government and laws, which are an armistice 
between states, and a treaty of perpetual peace between 
citizens. 

WHIGS — in power, are often Tories, as Tories, out of 
power, are Whigs. The public may well say with Mercutio, 
" A plague on both your houses," having found, to their 
cost, that whichever party comes in, they are sure to be 
losers, and that — 

" C'st pour le peuple une chose moins aigre, 
D'entretenir un gras, que d'engraisser un maigre." 

When, in the history of this country, we see one party 
driven out for incapacity, and their opponents claiming 
the reins of government as a matter of course, although 
they had not long before been expelled for a similar in- 
competency, we are reminded of the argumentative answer 
of the Irish peasant, — " Paddy, do you know how to drive ?" 
— " Sure I do ; never a better coachman in all Connaught. 
Wasn't it I who upset your honour into a ditch two years 
ago?" As the present Whigs, however, who have given 
us Reform, have made abundant atonement for the errors 
of their predecessors, they should be free from any reproach 
that may attach to the name. It has now merged into the 
more noble one of Reformers, and so long as they continue 
to direct their power to the same patriotic and beneficial 
ends, no lover of his country will wish to see them dis- 
possessed of it. As to the Tories, they have confessed 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 36 1 

everything laid to their charge, by acknowledging the very 
name to be so odious, that they have been fain to betake 
themselves to an alias. 

WHISKERS.—" I cannot imagine," said Alderman H— , 
" why my whiskers should turn grey, so much sooner than 
the hair of my head." " Because you have worked so much 
more with your jaws than your brains ; " observed a wag. 

WINDMILLS — machines which are only kept going by 
being perpetually puffed, in which respect they bear a 
pointed resemblance to certain authors. The latter raise 
the wind by increasing their sale, whereas the former 
diminish their sail as the wind increases. 

WISDOM OF OUR ANCESTORS— the experience of 
the inexperienced, and the superior knowledge of the igno- 
rant. Old women in pantaloons, who object to the smallest 
reform in our antiquated establishments, because they suited 
our forefathers, recall to memory the debate in the assembly 
of the Sorbonne upon the propriety of ordering new table- 
cloths. — " What ! " exclaimed a grey-bearded doctor, the 
conservative of the college, " are we wiser than our grand- 
fathers ? Are not these the identical cloths of which they so 
long made use?" — "Yes," said another, "and that is the 
reason why they are completely worn out." 

WIT — consists in discovering likenesses — judgment in 
detecting differences. Wit is like a ghost, much more often 
talked of than seen. To be genuine, it should have a basis 
of truth and applicability, otherwise it degenerates into mere 
flippancy ; as, for instance, when Swift says, — " A very little 
wit is valued in a woman, as we are pleased with a few 
words spoken plain by a parrot ;" or when Voltaire remarks, 



362 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

that " Ideas are like beards; women and young men have 
none." This is a random facetiousness, if it deserves that 
term, which is equally despicable for its falsehood and its 
facility. 

Where shall we discover that rarer species of wit, which, 
like the vine, bears the more clusters of sweet grapes the 
oftener it is pruned ; or like the seven-mouthed Nile, springs 
the faster from the head, the more copiously it flows from 
the mouth ? 

The sensations excited by wit are destroyed, or at least 
impaired, if it excites the stronger emotions, or even if it 
be connected with purposes of utility and improvement. 
We may laugh where it is bitter, as the Sardinians did 
when they had tasted of their venomous herb ; but this is 
the risibility of the muscles, allied to convulsion, rather than 
to intellectual pleasure. 

You may sometimes show that you have not got your 
own wits about you, by thinking that other people have. 
When Mrs. M 'Gibbon was preparing to act Jane Shore, at 
Liverpool, her dresser, an ignorant country girl, informed 
her that a woman had called to request two box orders, 
because she and her daughter had walked four miles on 
purpose to see the play. "Does she know me?" inquired 
the mistress. "Not at all," was the reply, "What a very 
odd request!" exclaimed Mrs. M'G. — "Has the good 
woman got her faculties about her?" — "I think she have, 
Ma'am, for I see she ha' got summut tied up in a red silk 
handkercher." 

WOMAN — an exquisite production of nature, between a 
rose and an angel, according to a German poet; the female 
of the human species, according to the zoologists; the re- 
deeming portion of humanity, according to politer fact and 
experience. Woman is a treasure of which the profligate 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 363 

and the unmarried, can never appreciate the full value, for 
he who possesses many does not possess one. Malherbe, 
says in his Letters, that the Creator may have repented the 
creation of man, but that He had no reason to repent having 
made woman ? Who will deny this : and which of us does 
not feel, though in due subjection to a holier religion, the 
devotion of Anacreon, who, when he was asked, why he 
addressed so many of his hymns to women, and so 
few to the deities? answered, "Because women are my 
deities." 

In England the upper classes are generally so much 
occupied with public affairs, or with local and magisterial 
duties, to say nothing of the uncongenial sports of the field, 
that women are obliged to associate with frivolous danglers 
and idlers, to whose standard they necessarily lower their 
minds and their conversation. To appear a blue-stocking 
subjects a female to certain ridicule with those coxcombs 
who adopt the silly notion of Lessing, " that a young lady 
who thinks, is like a man who rouges," and who maintain 
that she should address herself, not to the sense, but to 
the senses of her male companions. Politics have thus 
tended to effect a mental dissociation of the sexes, the 
jealousy of dunces to trivialise the conversational inter- 
course that still subsists, and women whose unchecked 
intellectual energies would be u Dolphin-like, and show 
themselves above the element they move in," are compelled 
to bow to this subjection, unless they have the courage to 
set up for blue-stockings — and old maids. Were their 
supremacy to effect no change in the present general cha- 
racter of the sex, I believe the world would be an in- 
calculable gainer by making them lords of their lords, and 
committing to them the sole direction of all affairs, both 
national and domestic. As some of our most distinguished 
sovereigns have been females, is it unreasonable to conclude 



364 THE TIN TRUMPET; 

that we should insure permanent good government for the 
whole human race, by acknowledging the sovereignty of 
the sex ? 

To the French must be assigned the honour of the fol- 
lowing just encomium, " Sans les femmes les deux extremites 
de la vie seraient sans secours, et le milieu sans plaisirsP 

WORDS — sometimes signs of ideas, and sometimes of 
the want of them. When so many are coining new words, 
it is a security against a superfluous supply to know that 
old ones are occasionally lost. An .Eton scholar, whose 
faculties had been bemuddled with the spondees and dactyls 
of prosody, having got out of nominal into real nonsense 
verses, carried up a soi-disant Latin epigram to his master. 
After reading it over two or three times very carefully, the 
pedagogue exclaimed, " I cannot find any verb here." — 
" That is the reason that I brought it to you," said the 
boy with great naivete', " I thought you might perhaps tell 
me where it was." 

WORDSWORTH.— The cheerful piety of this writer, his 
penetrative wisdom, most profound when it appears the most 
simple, and his ennobling aspirations, all modulated into 
the most exquisite music of which our language is sus- 
ceptible, touch a chord, as we are reading him, with which 
every heart may be proud to beat in unison. Not in cities, 
not in colleges, nor even in the solitary cell, can his writings 
be properly appreciated. We should wander forth with them 
to the fields and groves, where we may imbibe the kindred 
influences of nature, and hold communion with the Creator 
through the medium of the beauty and magnificence He 
hath everywhere created ; until the hallowed and invigorated 
soul, throwing off all its petty cares and misgivings, effuses 
itself in a serene delight. To feel the poems of Wordsworth, 



OR, HEADS AND TALES. 365 

we should peruse them with the fresh air of heaven blowing 
round about us, amid the scenes that he pictures, where we 
may compare the face of nature with its reflection in the 
printed mirror before us; where we may acknowledge the 
presence and the influence of that exhilarating Spirit which 
he loves to evoke, and yielding ourselves to the devout reve- 
ries he has so described, may gradually sink into — 

" that serene and blessed mood, 



In which the affections gently lead us on, 

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame, 

And even the motion of our human blood, 

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 

In body, and become a living soul ; ■( 

While with a heart made quiet by the power 

Of harmony, and the deep sense of joy, 

We see into the life of things." 

WORLD, The — a great inn, kept in a perpetual bustle 
by arrivals and departures : by the going away of those who 
have just paid their bills (the debt of nature), and the coming 
of those who will soon have a similar account to settle : — 
Decessio pereuntiurn, et successio fieriturorum. 

WRITING — painting invisible words — giving substance 
and colour to immaterial thought, enabling the dumb to talk 
to the deaf. 

WRONG — may be aggravated without any increase of 
evil doing, as good may be diminished without any abate- 
ment of actual beneficence. " Joyful remembrances of wrong 
actions," says Jean Paul, "are their half repetitions, as re- 
pentant remembrances of good ones are their half abolish- 
ment. In law, the intention, not the act, constitutes the 
crime ; and in the moral law, virtue should be measured by 
the same standard. 

A A* 



3^6 THE TIN TRUMPET. 



AWNING — opening the mouth when you are 
sleepy, and want to shut your eyes ; an in- 
fectious sensation very prevalent during the 
delivery of a tedious sermon, or the perusal 
of a dull novel, but never experienced when 
reading a work like the present ! 

YEARS — of discretion. The young and giddy reader is 
requested to see — Greek Calends. 

YOUTH — a magic lantern, that surrounds us with illu- 
sions which excite pleasure, surprise, and admiration, what- 
ever be their nature. The old age of the sensual and the 
vicious is the same lantern without its magic — the glasses 
broken, and the illusions gone, while the exhausted lamp, 
threatening every moment to expire, sheds a ghastly glare, 
not upon a fair tablecloth, full of jocund associations, but 
upon what appears to be a dismal shroud, prepared to 
receive our remains. 

And now, gentle reader, or rather may I call you simple, 
if you have waded through this strange farrago, here will 
I bring it to a close, hoping by its example the better to 
impress upon you the pithy precept, that all our follies 
and frivolities, all our crude and undigested notions, all 
our "bald and disjointed talk," should, like this little volume, 
terminate with — Youth. 



the EN 



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BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRTARS. 



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